Fabrication of high performance Pt counter electrodes on conductive plastic substrate for flexible dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Pt counter electrodes (CEs) with different platinum loading have been prepared using chemical reduced method on flexible indium-doped tin oxide coated polyethylene naphthalate (ITO-PEN) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). H 2PtCl 6·6H 2O terpineol solutions were screen printed on the transparent ITO-PEN substrates. After drying, H 2PtCl 6 was reduced by treating it in NaBH 4 solution followed by the hydrothermal treatment at 100 °C. The obtained Pt CEs with different Pt-loading (2.4–7.7 μg/cm 2) were characterized by SEM, XPS, electrochemical impedance and transmission spectrum measurement. The Pt CEs show high catalytic activity, low charge transfer resistance (0.26–1.38 Ω cm 2) and good light transmittance (about 70% at 400–800 nm). The light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of the flexible DSSC fabricated with the prepared Pt CE and the TiO 2 photoanode prepared on Ti substrate by screen printing technique attains 5.41% under the simulated AM 1.5 sunlight, which is almost same as that based on the thermal decomposited Pt CE on FTO-glass. Compared with other methods to prepare Pt CEs, chemical reduced method is simple and suitable for flexible polymer substrates and the large scale preparation of DSSCs.