Facile synthesis of hybrid ZnO nanostructures by combined electrodeposition and chemical bath deposition for improved performance of dye-sensitized solar cell

Herein, equimolar hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) were used to couple chemical bath deposition (CBD) and electrode deposition (ED) techniques to decorate electrodeposited one-dimensional (1-D) ZnO nano-rods with wurtzite nano-spindles in the attempt of increasing surface area to fabricate efficient and cost-effective dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) photo-anode. The resulting hybrid photo-anode offers an enhancement of 43% in photocurrent density than bare ZnO nano-rods. The corresponding augmentation in photocurrent response is attributed to comparative increase in crystallinity and considerable decrease in charge transfer resistance across the interface as being analyzed by X-ray diffraction and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), respectively. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.