Improved Light Harvesting of Fiber-Shaped Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells by Using a Bacteriophage Doping Method.

Sung-Jun Koo,Jin Woo Choi,Jin-Woo Oh,Yong-Ki Kim,Myungkwan Song,Jae Ho Kim,Myunghun Shin,Hyung Woo Lee

doi:10.3390/nano11123421

Abstract

Fiber-shaped solar cells (FSCs) with flexibility, wearability, and wearability have emerged as a topic of intensive interest and development in recent years. Although the development of this material is still in its early stages, bacteriophage-metallic nanostructures, which exhibit prominent localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties, are one such material that has been utilized to further improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of solar cells. This study confirmed that fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells (FDSSCs) enhanced by silver nanoparticles-embedded M13 bacteriophage (Ag@M13) can be developed as solar cell devices with better PCE than the solar cells without them. The PCE of FDSSCs was improved by adding the Ag@M13 into an iodine species (I−/I3−) based electrolyte, which is used for redox couple reactions. The optimized Ag@M13 enhanced FDSSC showed a PCE of up to 5.80%, which was improved by 16.7% compared to that of the reference device with 4.97%.

Highlights

Harvesting solar energy has been regarded as one of the easiest solutions to collect the promising renewable energy resources for sustainable development
M13 bacteriophages with thewere iminvestigated by electrochemical characterization using cyclic voltammetry (CV) measureproved localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties were supplemented to the electrolyte of the fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells (FDSSCs)
The CV measurement of the enhanced electrolyte as a function firmed that the anchoring of metallic silver (Ag)@M13 enhanced electrolyte showed high absorbance in a long waveof Ag NPs-embedded M13 bacteriophage (Ag@M13) was based on a three-electrode system consisting of two Pt wire electrodes as length region of 500 nm or more, and that the plasmonic Ag NPs were uniformly oriented the working and counter electrode, respectively, and an Ag/AgCl as the reference elecand aligned in nanoscale M13 bacteriophages

Summary

Introduction

Harvesting solar energy has been regarded as one of the easiest solutions to collect the promising renewable energy resources for sustainable development. Among various flexible energy harvesting technologies, fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells (FDSSCs), which represent a promising future energy source with flexible and wearable properties, are drawing the attention of many researchers because it is lightweight, inexpensive, simple to manufacture, and flexible [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The FDSSCs typically consist of three parts: a photoanode (PA), a counter electrode (CE), and a redox electrolyte. The excited electrons are injected into the conduction band of the PA and diffused through the PA into the electrode to reach the CE through an external circuit. Iodide (I− ), a reductive species in the electrolyte, supplies electrons to the oxidized dye and becomes triiodide (I3 − ), which in turn gains electrons from the CE to complete the redox couple [8,9]

Methods

Results

Conclusion