Promoting active sites of Fe3+ ions in SrTiO3 nanosphere: A superior candidate for high performances of Dye-sensitized solar cell and Photocatalytic dye degradation

Abstract

In the present exploration, the impurity like Fe is doped in the SrTiO3 (STO) in order to enhance the physical properties which in turn used to engineer the material for the specific applications like photoanode in Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) along with the visible-light driven photocatalyst. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirms the formation of cubic perovskite structured SrTiO3 nanoparticles. The UV-Vis studies reveal that the impurity energy level of the Fe3+ electron could be excited to the conduction band of the SrTiO3, resulting in light absorption in the visible region. The DSSC based on Fe doped STO photoanode shows a lower recombination rate of photogenerated carriers and a longer lifetime, as evidenced by Photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), Incident Photon to Current Conversion Efficiency (IPCE) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) images show the spherical-like morphology. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed the elements present in the material and chemical compositions. When compared with the bare STO photoanode, STF5 photoanode showed two fold increase in the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.23 % with an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.72 V, short circuit current (Jsc) of 7.32 mA cm-2, fill factor (FF) of 0.61 and four fold enhancement in IPCE of 41.18 %. Additionally, profit from the merits of STF5 photocatalyst showed a significantly enhanced photocatalytic efficiency (82 %) of methylene blue (MB) degradation under Visible light irradiation. The detailed results are presented and discussed.