Bifunctional polyaniline electrode tailored hybridized solar cells for energy harvesting from sun and rain

Abstract

Pursuit of energy-harvesting or -storage materials to realize outstanding electricity output from nature has been regarded as a promising strategy to resolve the energy-lack issue in the future. Among them, the solar cell as a solar-to-electrical conversion device has been attracted enormous interest to improve the efficiency. However, the ability to generate electricity is highly dependent on the weather conditions, in other words, there is nearly zero power output in dark-light conditions, such as rainy, cloudy, and night, lowering the monolithic power generation capacity. Here, we present a bifunctional polyaniline film via chemical bath deposition, which can harvest energy from the rain, yielding an induced current of 2.57 µA and voltage of 65.5 µV under the stimulus of real raindrop. When incorporating the functional PANi film into the traditional dye sensitized solar cell as a counter electrode, the hybridized photovoltaic can experimentally realize the enhanced output power via harvesting energy from rainy and sunny days. The current work may show a new path for development of advanced solar cells in the future.