Performances of Carbon Black-Titanium nitrate and Carbon Black-Titanium/Triton X-100 Composite Polymer Counter Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

The development of platinum-free counter electrodes (CEs) is significant in the development of cost-effective dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). In this study, Pt-free, low-cost carbon black-titanium nitrate (CB-TiN) nanocomposite counter electrodes CEs were prepared via simple heating and cooling process for application in DSSCs. Different weight concentrations of CB-TiN (15-200 mg) were uniformly blended with PEDOT:PSS at 350 rpm and 150°C for 10 mins. Thereafter, the solution mixtures were immediately cooled at 4°C overnight to produce PEDOT:PSS/CB-TiN CEs. Further, to investigate the effects of iso-octyphenoxy-polyethoxyethanol (TX100) on the performance of the PEDOT:PSS/CB-TIN CE, various concentrations of TX100 (1-10%) were blended with PEDOT:PSS/15mgCB-TiN CE mixture at room temperature to produce PEDOT:PSS/15mgCB-TiN/TX100 CEs. The results indicated a gradual increase in electrocatalytic activity coupled with a reduction in internal resistance in the DSSCs as the weight of CB-TiN nanoparticles was enhanced. Similar results were obtained when the concentration of TX100 was increased. The DSSCs with the PEDOT:PSS/200mgCB-TiN and PEDOT:PSS/15mgCB-TiN/10%TX100 CEs exhibited optimum performances of 4.42% and 4.32%, respectively. Their performance closely matches that of the Pt CE (4.43%).