Graphene nanosheets as counter electrode with phenoxazine dye for efficient dye sensitized solar cell

Abstract

Efficient dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are developed using phenoxazine (POZ) based organic dye (WS5) and graphene nanosheets (GNs) counter electrode (CE). Being organic, both these materials are used together to explore compatibility of organic materials in current DSSCs. Organic dye with POZ moiety is synthesized and graphene oxide nanosheets (GONs) are spin coated on FTO glass and thermally reduced afterwards. To increase the performance of WS5 through decreased dye aggregation, deoxycholic acid (DCA) is added to it. The results of adding DCA are observed and compared using UV-Vis spectroscopy, external quantum efficiency (EQE), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE). Prepared organic dye based DSSC cell results in a high PCE of 6.61%. The optimized WS5 dye and GNs CE, shows PCE of 5.77% and the GNs CE compared to Pt CE results in almost identical charge transfer resistance value at the CE/electrolyte interface. Low cost of this designed organic dye and GNs and the PCE results indicate that this combination may result in the reduction of cost of current DSSCs and the realization that expensive and rare inorganic materials can be replaced with organic ones in future. (C) 2017 Elsevier B. V.