Nitrogen-Doped Bagasse-Derived Carbon/ Low Pt Composite as Counter Electrodes for High Efficiency Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

Abstract

N-doped bagasse-derived carbon/Pt composite (NBC/Pt) with a very low Pt loading (0.31 wt%) is synthesized by a simple and ecofriendly hydrothermal process with bagasse as the carbon precursor and investigated as the counter electrode (CE) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The N doping reduces Pt nanoparticles size and facilitates the dispersion of Pt nanoparticles, which promotes the strong interaction between Pt and carbon supports. The electrochemical results show that the structural feature is beneficial to improve charge transfer rate on the interface between Pt nanoparticles and carbon supports, resulting in the enhanced catalytic activity toward I − /I 3 − redox couples. Under simulated AM 1.5 G solar illumination at 100 mW cm −2 , the DSSCs with the NBC/Pt composite CE exhibit a 6.98% power conversion efficiency (PCE), which is superior to the conventional Pt (PCE = 6.08%) CE. The NBC/Pt composite is an attractive CE material that can use 2.52 x less Pt loading onto each FTO substrate than the conventional Pt CE, which is advantageous over the high cost Pt for the fabrication of DSSCs.

Biomass-derived carbon electrodes for supercapacitors and hybrid solar cells: towards sustainable photo-supercapacitors

“…Only 28 reports are published on the application of ACs extracted from biomass waste as counter-electrode for DSCs and the highest results of PCE are summarized in Table 2. [104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113] Highly conductive porous AC can be obtained from biomass with the use of simple activation methods already discussed in the first section and the resulting materials applied as low-cost counter-electrodes for high performance DSCs. notes: meso-porous, mp-; activated carbon, AC.…”

Natural resources for dye-sensitized solar cells

“…Rice husk [165,235,236] Coconut shell [170,237,238] Pumpkin stem [183] Mangosteen peel [167] Pine cone flower [239] Various leaves [240][241][242] Various woods [241,243] Sunflower stalk [173] Aloe peel [174,175,[177][178][179]244,245] Kelp [246] Orange fiber [185] Pomelo peel [181] Animal biomass Fish [166,247] Human hair [248] Post-consumer waste Ground coffee [188] Facial tissue [241] Paper [241] Carton [182] Commercial biomass Bagasse [171] Table sugar [184] Sucrose [184] Humic acid [249] Ovalbumin [250] J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 76 a The 𝑉 𝑜𝑐 from ref. [184] is unreliable.…”

“…[ 170 ]. However, DSSCs with similar electrolytes and dyes performed worse with a PCE of 6.08% [ 171 ]. In contrast, of the two devices are comparable, as and differ significantly.…”