Carbon black/SnSe composite: a low-cost, high performance counter electrode for dye sensitized solar cells

Platinum (Pt) has long been used as the most dominant counter electrode (CE) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Yet, its high price is a challenging factor for realizing the DSSCs practical applications. In this study, we propose a CE that is based on the composite of low-cost carbon black and thin selenide materials We synthesized the SnSe nanoparticles using the facile hydrothermal method and prepared a composite with commercial carbon black nanoparticles. We show that the composite which is used as the CE in TiO2-based DSSCs has a performance comparable to that of Pt CEs. The good performance of the composite is achieved through the adjustment of the CE porosity which utilizes the redox process with the electrolyte. Our best cell with a composite CE showed an efficiency of 5.0% with open circuit voltage of 660 mV, short circuit current density of 12.4 mA/cm(2) and fill factor of 62% which was very competitive with traditional Pt CE with 5.7% efficiency.

Automated summary

An alternative composite counter electrode (CE) based on carbon black and thin selenide materials was proposed in this study to replace the traditional expensive platinum CE in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Experimental results showed that the composite CE could achieve comparable performance to platinum CEs in DSSCs.