Highly efficient bio-based porous carbon hybridized with tungsten carbide as counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cell

Bio-based porous carbon (C-MA and C-TA) are successfully prepared from waste carton via microwave-assisted activation (MA) and two-step chemical activation (TA) methods, respectively. The as-prepared C-TA sample exhibits higher specific surface area (824.16 m(2) g(-1)) and larger total pore volume (0.71 cm(3) g(-1)), as compared with those of the C-MA sample (655.36 m(2) g(-1) and 0.62 cm(3) g(-1), correspondingly). The higher specific surface area could provide more catalytic sites; thus, the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) assembled with a C-TA counter electrode (CE) deliver a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.76%, surpass the C-MA-based DSSC (6.19%). Further, tungsten carbide (WC) are introduced into C-TA and C-MA to form hybrid catalysts (WC/C-TA and WC/C-MA, respectively) in order to improve their catalytic activities. Benefitting from the synergistic effect of bio-based porous carbon and WC, the DSSCs with WC/C-TA and WC/C-MA CEs exhibit superior PCE values of 7.32% and 6.85%, respectively, close to Pt (7.51%). This work provides an effective strategy for synthesizing low-cost and high-performance hybrid catalysts from bio-based carbon to achieve resource utilization of biomass waste in new energy fields.