Enhanced photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells based on nickel oxide supported on nitrogen-doped graphene nanocomposite as a photoanode

We applied the nitrogen-doped graphene@nickel oxide (NGE/NiO) nanocomposite doped TiO2 as a photo anode for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates by screen printing method. Power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.75% was achieved for this DSSCs device, which is greater than that of DSSCs devices using GO/TiO2, and NiO/TiO2 based photo-anodes (PCE = 8.55, and 9.11%). Also, the fill factor (FF) of the DSSCs devices using the NGE/NiO/TiO2 nanocomposite photo anode was better than that of other photo-anodes. The NGE/NiO/TiO2 short-circuit photocurrent density (J(sc)) of 19.04 mA cm(-2), open circuit voltage (V-oc) of 0.76 V, fill factor (FF) of 0.67 and dye absorption rate 0.21 x 10(-6) mol cm(-2). The obtained results suggest that as-prepared NGE/NiO/TiO2 nanocomposite is suitable photo-anode for DSSCs application. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.