Mesoporous Bi2S3 nanorods with graphene-assistance as low-cost counter-electrode materials in dye-sensitized solar cells

Sheng-qi Guo; Tian-zeng Jing; Xiao Zhang; Xiao-bing Yang; Zhi-hao Yuan; Fang-zhong Hu

doi:10.1039/C4NR04274C

Mesoporous Bi₂S₃ nanorods with graphene-assistance as low-cost counter-electrode materials in dye-sensitized solar cells†

Sheng-qi Guo,^a Tian-zeng Jing,^a Xiao Zhang,^a Xiao-bing Yang,^b Zhi-hao Yuan*^c and Fang-zhong Hu*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China

^b State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
E-mail: fzhu@nankai.edu.cn

^c Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials & Devices, Tianjin 300384, China
E-mail: zhyuan@tjut.edu.cn

Abstract

In this work, we report the synthesis of mesoporous Bi₂S₃ nanorods under hydrothermal conditions without additives, and investigated their catalytic activities as the CE in DSCs by I–V curves and tested conversion efficiency. To further improve their power conversion efficiency, we added different amounts of reduced graphene by simple physical mixing. With the addition of 9 wt% reduced graphene (rGO), the short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage and fill factor were J_sc = 15.33 mA cm⁻², V_oc = 0.74 V and FF = 0.609. More importantly, the conversion efficiency reached 6.91%, which is slightly inferior to the commercial Pt counter electrode (7.44%). Compared to the conventional Pt counter electrodes of solar cells, this new material has the advantages of low-cost, facile synthesis and high efficiency with graphene assistance. To the best of our knowledge, this Bi₂S₃ + 9 wt% rGO system has the best performance ever recorded in all Bi₂S₃-based CEs in the DSCs system.

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C4NR04274C
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 28 Jul 2014
Accepted: 02 Oct 2014
First published: 03 Oct 2014

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Nanoscale, 2014,6, 14433-14440

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Mesoporous Bi₂S₃ nanorods with graphene-assistance as low-cost counter-electrode materials in dye-sensitized solar cells

S. Guo, T. Jing, X. Zhang, X. Yang, Z. Yuan and F. Hu, Nanoscale, 2014, 6, 14433 DOI: 10.1039/C4NR04274C

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