Facile electropolymerized-PANI as counter electrode for low cost dye-sensitized solar cell

The in situ electropolymerized-polyaniline (PANI) film (thickness: 5-20 mu m) on FTO (fluorine tin oxide) glass doped by various counterions SO42-. ClO4-, BF4-, Cl-, p-toluenesulfonate (TsO-), etc. was prepared with electropolymerized charge capacity of 50-600 mC cm(-2). Different doping counterions have great impact on the morphology, electrochemical activity of electropolymerized-PANI film. The electropolymerized-PANI doped by SO42- anion (PANI-SO4) film with much porous morphology and pore size diameter of several micrometers possesses higher reduction current for reduction of I-3(-) and a low charge-transfer resistance of 1.3 Omega cm(2) in comparison with Pt as counter electrode (CE). Dye-sensitized solar cell with PANI-SO4 as CE was assembled, and the device under full sunlight illumination (100 mW cm(-2), AM 1.5 G) shows 5.6% photovoltaic conversion efficiency, which is comparable to 6.0% of that with Pt CE under the same experimental condition. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.