Release Time:2019-03-09  Hits:

Indexed by: Journal Article

Date of Publication: 2011-11-17

Journal: JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C

Included Journals: EI、SCIE、Scopus

Volume: 115

Issue: 45

Page Number: 22598-22602

ISSN: 1932-7447

Abstract: Tungsten dioxide imbedded in mesoporous carbon (WO2-MC) was obtained by in situ synthesis and then introduced into dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) as a counter electrode (CE) catalyst. Catalytic activity for redox couple regeneration was improved significantly through combining high electrical conductivity and catalytic activity into one material, WO2-MC, in which WO2 served as a catalyst and MC served as an electrical conductor. This has been proved by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The triiodide/iodide-based DSC using WO2-MC as CE showed a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.76%, which surpassed the performance of the DSC using traditional Pt CE (7.55%). In addition, the WO2-MC and WO2 nanorods exhibited higher catalytic activity than Pt for the regeneration of a new organic redox couple, di-5-(1-methyltetrazole) disulfide/5-mercapto-1-methyltetrazole N-tetramethylammonium salt (T-2/T-). The PCE of the T-2/T--based DSCs using WO2-MC, WO2, and Pt were 5.22, 4.66, and 3.09%, respectively.