Nitrogen, sulfur coordinated metal complex and reduced graphene oxide hybrid materials as counter electrodes for application in dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Graphene, as one of the carbon-based materials, is considered to be a potential replacement for platinum and has been widely used as a counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells to achieve low-cost and high electrocatalytic materials. In this work, we synthesized a nitrogen-sulfur-coordinated iron complex as a source of heteroatoms, and prepared iron-nitrogen-sulfur co-doped reduced graphene oxide (FeNS-rGO) composite material by mixing with different mass ratios of graphene oxide (GO) and thermal annealing under nitrogen at 400 °C. The sintered GO was transformed into rGO, which increased the conductivity of materials, while the doping of nitrogen and sulfur atoms enhanced the carrier mobility and conductivity of the material. The distribution of Fe on graphene also improved the catalytic performance of material. FeNS-rGO (5:1), used as the CE in DSSC, showed superior reduction catalytic activity for I−/I3− compared to platinum and demonstrated an excellent power conversion efficiency of 8.17 %, which outperformed platinum. This proves that the graphene composite material doped with iron, nitrogen, and sulfur has excellent performance and can be used as a substitute for platinum.