The conversion of biowaste into useful materials for technological uses has received a lot of interest in recent years. Here, a NiO@walnut shell (WS)-derived carbon composite (NiO@WS-derived carbon) was synthesized to be employed as an alternate counter electrode (CE) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The morphological studies demonstrated that NiO nanoparticles were uniformly impregnated into the WS-derived carbon frameworks. The electrochemical investigations showed that the NiO@WS-derived carbon composite CE displayed high catalytic activity and significant stability toward the I 3 − /I − redox couple after 100 CV cycles. The charge-transfer resistance of the NiO@WS-derived carbon composite CE (2.21 Ω) was also lower than that of the Pt-CE (3.04 Ω).

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