Abstract
Since Prof. Grätzel and co-workers achieved breakthrough progress on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) in 1991, DSSCs have been extensively investigated and wildly developed as a potential renewable power source in the last two decades due to their low cost, low energy-intensive processing, and high roll-to-roll compatibility. During this period, the highest efficiency recorded for DSSC under ideal solar light (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm−2) has increased from ~7% to ~14.3%. For the practical use of solar cells, the performance of photovoltaic devices in several conditions with weak light irradiation (e.g., indoor) or various light incident angles are also an important item. Accordingly, DSSCs exhibit high competitiveness in solar cell markets because their performances are less affected by the light intensity and are less sensitive to the light incident angle. However, the most used catalyst in the counter electrode (CE) of a typical DSSC is platinum (Pt), which is an expensive noble metal and is rare on earth. To further reduce the cost of the fabrication of DSSCs on the industrial scale, it is better to develop Pt-free electro-catalysts for the CEs of DSSCs, such as transition metallic compounds, conducting polymers, carbonaceous materials, and their composites. In this article, we will provide a short review on the Pt-free electro-catalyst CEs of DSSCs with superior cell compared to Pt CEs; additionally, those selected reports were published within the past 5 years.
Highlights
Our civilization was born from fire and electricity energy
Hybrid compound electro-catalysts based on carbon, conductive polymer, and metal compound electro-catalysts could offer some advantages such as good electrocatalytic ability, good corrosion resistance, adjustable energy levels, good electrical conductivity, good adhesion to the substrate, and high possibility of roll-to-roll processing [3,13,17–19,23,83–85]
The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) performance could be improved by (1) the more reaction areas and electron pathways offered by hierarchical porous Fe3 O4 nanoflowers decorated with Ni nanoparticles and RGO nanosheets, (2) more active sites provided by heteroatoms embedded into graphene oxide, and (3) the excellent electrocatalytic properties of Fe3 O4, Ni, and RGO
Summary
Our civilization was born from fire and electricity energy. Everything in human life relies on fire and electricity energy for development. Solar cells can directly converse photons (solar radiation) to electrons (electricity) In this regard, solar cells are important for the development of sustainable energy resources in our civilization. DSSC electro-catalytic applications are ability, sumhigh redox couple astability, high electron and conductive, abundance, cost, and marized to provide better understanding strategiesnatural to researchers. Pt-free electro-catalyst are of targeted free materialstousually have two aspects: one is thematerials application variousto carbonaceous materials, polymers, transition metallic compounds, materials, and the other isconducting the nanostructure design. Their effects willand be their dishybrid composites [19–30].
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