Effect of TiO₂-rGO heterojunction on electron collection efficiency and mechanical properties of fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

It is demonstrated that the incorporation of graphene materials into oxide-based photoanodes can greatly increase the photoelectrochemical devices' performances. In this work, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has been incorporated into P25-TiO 2 nanoparticle (NP) based photoanodes for fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells (FDSSCs). Results showed that the rGO nanosheets have been uniformly dispersed within P25 nanoparticle layers, and, as expected, the incorporation of rGO increased the FDSSCs' short current density from 8.344 to 12.935 mA cm −2 , open circuit voltage from 0.775 to 0.798 V, resulting into their power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 3.940% to 5.364%. This large increasement in PCE could be due to two aspects, i.e. the improved electron transport properties via rGO and the enhanced separation of photogenerated hole-electron pairs via rGO-TiO 2 heterojunction. Furthermore, the incorporation of rGO can also make the FDSSCs have good mechanical properties, which is very crucial for their future applications in smart wearable electronics. In addition, based on our analysis, a possible rGO/multi-NP coupling enhancement mechanism was proposed.

Investigation of Reduced Graphene Oxide and a Nb-Doped TiO2 Nanotube Hybrid Structure To Improve the Gas-Sensing Response and Selectivity

“…The aforementioned results indicate that the sensing features of the hybrid material are dominated by the interface of RGO and Nb−TiO 2 NTs. In the meantime, the results obtained by the electrical and gas-sensing characterization of the structures are in agreement with the literature 25,26,38,40 and the XPS analyses reported in our previous work. 33 Moreover, the sensing response of the hybrid material is n-type for all of the tested gases.…”

“…This is reasonably ascribed to the excessive GO content, which hinders the interfacial electron transport between TiO 2 and RGO. 38 In comparison, the RGO conductance sharply rose until 9 ng/ mm 2 , followed by no significant change up to about 15.75 ng/ mm 2 . Afterward, a sharp decrease was observed at a GO concentration of 18 ng/mm 2 , followed by a sharp conductance increase at a concentration of 24.75 ng/mm 2 .…”

Electronic fibers and textiles: Recent progress and perspective

“…Platinum wires have been used as counter electrodes in fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells (Gu et al, 2019;Pu et al, 2016). A newly developed thermally drawn technology, jointly stretching a variety of materials, including metals, insulators, and semiconductors, can regulate the diameter of fibers from micro-to nanoscale, achieving novel and complex structures with the required size (Figure 2A) (Leber et al, 2020).…”

A Route Toward Smart System Integration: From Fiber Design to Device Construction

“…Metal fibers, also named as metal wires, for example, Cu wire, Ti wire, Pt wire, and stainless‐steel wire, have been extensively used in electronic devices. They work as conductive leads and/or functional components in fiber‐based electronic devices due to some merits, e.g., excellent electrical conductivity and high catalytic activity . For instance, Pt wire served as a counter electrode in fiber‐shaped dye‐sensitized solar cell .…”

“…They work as conductive leads and/or functional components in fiber‐based electronic devices due to some merits, e.g., excellent electrical conductivity and high catalytic activity . For instance, Pt wire served as a counter electrode in fiber‐shaped dye‐sensitized solar cell . Ti wire ( Figure a) was used as a current collector for fiber‐shaped supercapacitor .…”