Abstract
The sluggish photoelectrochemical performance of p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (p-DSSCs) has hindered its commercial use. In this work, we introduce a novel hierarchical nanocomposite of NiO nanoparticles anchored on highly ordered mesoporous carbons CMK-3 (NiO/CMK-3). Using CMK-3 as a backbone effectively prevented the self-aggregation of NiO nanoparticles and subsequently increased the total specific surface area of the composite for more dye adsorption. The interconnected conductive networks of CMK-3 also served as a split-flow high-speed channel, which was beneficial for hole spin-flow to accelerate hole transfer. The hierarchical NiO/CMK-3 photocathode improved the photovoltaic conversion efficiency to 1.48% in a cell with a Cobalt(II)/(III) electrolyte and a PMI-6T-TPA dye.
Highlights
Conventional low-cost dye-sensitized solar cells based on n-type nanocrystalline TiO2 photoanodes (n-DSSCs) have attracted great interest for several years
The conductivity of CMK-3 with such a graphitic phase can be improved, and CMK-3 can serve as a shuttle to enhance electron transport and suppress recombination [19]
A compact NiO blocking layer was first deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)
Summary
Conventional low-cost dye-sensitized solar cells based on n-type nanocrystalline TiO2 photoanodes (n-DSSCs) have attracted great interest for several years. Dye-sensitized solar cells based on p-type semiconductors (p-DSSCs) have attracted growing attention [2,3,4,5]. These have comparable theoretical efficiency to the n-DSSCs and similar operating principles with only the nature of the photoinjected charges being different. A theoretical upper limit efficiency of 43% can be achieved for such devices, which is much higher than that of single-junction solar cells [2,6]. The photoelectrical performance of p-DSSC is limited by intrinsically low voltages and currents. Such low photocurrents represent a major performance limitation in p-DSSCs
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