Ni-incorporated carbon materials derived from humic acid as efficient low-cost electrocatalysts for dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Abstract The scale-up application of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) will desire the efficient and low-cost electrocatalytic counter electrodes. Carbon materials derived from the natural materials have been extensively used in the new energy fields owing to numerously distinct advantages. In this work, a new-style carbon matrix incorporated with Ni species is manufactured through pyrolyzing the humic acid-Ni complex compounds under an inert atmosphere. Systematic electrochemical measurements reveal that the Ni-incorporated carbon holds an elevated triiodide reducing properties in contrast to the single carbonized humic acid. The improvement of electrocatalytic ability may be ascribed to Ni incorporated in carbon matrix that offer more electroactive sites. As a result, when the prepared Ni-incorporated material serves as electrocatalyst in iodide-mediated DSSC, the corresponding device yields a PCE of 7.01%, which increases by 14% in contrast to the single carbonized humic acid (6.14%) and is close to that (7.1%) of as-reference Pt electrode. This study indicates that the proposed carbonaceous material may be in favour of large-scale production of low cost and high efficiency DSSCs.