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High-performance and transparent counter electrodes based on polypyrrole and ferrous sulfide nanoparticles for dye-sensitized solar cells

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Abstract

The polypyrrole (PPy) electrode is synthesized by chemical oxidative polymerization on fluorine-doped tin oxide glass. Then the ferrous sulfide (FeS) nanoparticles is formed during the PPy nanoparticles by immersing the PPy electrodes in fresh Na2S methanol solution (0.1 M) for 20 min. The synergistic effect of PPy and FeS nanoparticles make PPy/FeS CE possesses perfect transparency, good conductivity and excellent electrocatalytic activity for the reduction of triiodide/iodide. This would be attributed to improve the contact between counter electrode and electrolyte and enhance the collection and transmission of electrons. The transparent and high-efficiency PPy/FeS CE appears to be a potential candidate to the high cost and corrodible Pt CE of DSSCs. The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on PPy/FeS electrode can obtain a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.48 % than that of DSSCs with pure PPy electrode (6.45 %) or Pt electrode (7.10 %) under full sunlight illumination (100 mW cm−2, AM 1.5 G). Furthermore, the DSSC based on PPy/FeS electrode would obtain a high value of PCE (5.72 %) with back illumination.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supporting by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 91422301, U1205112, 21301060, and 61306077, 61474047).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center of Environment-Friendly Functional Materials, Ministry of Education, Institute of Materials Physical Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Functional Materials, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, 362021, China

    Jinghao Huo, Min Zheng, Yongguang Tu & Jihuai Wu

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  1. Jinghao Huo
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  2. Min Zheng
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  3. Yongguang Tu
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  4. Jihuai Wu
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Correspondence to Jihuai Wu.

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Huo, J., Zheng, M., Tu, Y. et al. High-performance and transparent counter electrodes based on polypyrrole and ferrous sulfide nanoparticles for dye-sensitized solar cells. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 27, 5680–5685 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-016-4478-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-016-4478-5

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