Amorphous carbon as a flexible counter electrode for low cost and efficient dye sensitized solar cell

Ganapathy Veerappan, Karunagaran Bojan and Shi-Woo Rhee

Renewable Energy, 2012, vol. 41, issue C, 383-388

Abstract: Dye sensitized solar cells (DSCs) were fabricated with carbon counter electrode deposited at low temperature. Carbon powders with an average particle size of 30–50 nm were ultrasonically dispersed in ethanol and the solution was used for spray coating onto fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrate and also onto transparent conducting oxide coated plastic substrate at 100 °C. Thickness of the carbon electrode was controlled by varying the spray deposition time from 10 s to 420 s. Catalytic property of carbon material was measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The charge transfer resistance (RCT) of carbon electrode deposited for 420 s was found out to be ∼2.6 Ω cm2 in iodide/tri-iodide redox electrolyte which was similar to platinum (Pt) electrode (∼1.8 Ω cm2). Current-voltage characteristic of the DSC was measured using a solar simulator under one sun illumination (100 mW cm−2, AM 1.5). DSC with spray coated carbon counter electrode on glass and plastic showed energy conversion efficiency of more than 6.0%, which is comparable with the Pt counter electrode DSC. This optimized condition was also successfully applied with the quasi-solid electrolyte, which also illustrates promising performance.

Keywords: Flexible carbon counter electrode; Spray coating; Charge transfer resistance; Quasi-solid electrolyte; Dye sensitized solar cells (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:41:y:2012:i:c:p:383-388

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2011.10.020

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