Exploring a novel counter electrode material (NiO/Co3O4/CuO anchored on rGO) as an efficient replacement for platinum in dye-sensitized solar cells

• Published in: Materials letters 2023-11, Vol.350, p.134950, Article 134950
• Main Authors: Jennifer, P. Joselene Suzan, Muthupandi, S., Ruban, M. Joe Raja, Annie Canisius, D., Prabhu, A. Patrick, Madhavan, J., Raj, M. Victor Antony
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon materials; Nanocomposites; Solar energy materials; X-ray techniques
• ISSN: 0167-577X; 1873-4979
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2023.134950

•A suitable replacement of rGO/NiO/Co3O4/CuO was found for Pt as CE in the DSSC.•The reproducibility was ensured by fabricating 60 devices employing various PA.•The designed DSSC's efficiency is 7.33 %, which meets 90.13 % of the Pt-CE. Solar cells are one of the best-suited devices which can deal with drastic energy demands due to advancements in technology. In this work, Pt-free rGO/NiO/Co3O4/CuO (RNCC) was developed to serve as the counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells. RNCC was used with a variety of photoanodes (PA), including TiO2, ZnO, and TiO2/ZnO employing N-719 as the dye matrix and FTO as the substrate. The produced Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) were tested in terms of their functionality, optical properties and photovoltaic performance. The produced DSSC using RNCC as the counter electrode was fabricated 20 times to ensure its reproducibility and was discovered to have a promising photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.33 % which is 90.13 % of Pt counter electrode (8.3 %) used under the identical conditions. Thus, making the RNCC nanocomposite serve as a virtuous alternative to high-cost Pt as CE thereby accelerating cost-efficient in DSSCs in the future.