Design and Development of Counter Electrode Materials for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Yu Hou^a, Huagui Yang^a^,^b

^aSchool of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai, China, Shanghai, 200237, China

^bCentre for Clean Environment and Energy, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Queensland 4222

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)

Ecublens, Switzerland, 2014 May 11th - 14th

Organizers: Michael Graetzel and Mohammad Nazeeruddin

Poster, Yu Hou, 009
Publication date: 1st March 2014

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) show great promise as an alternative to conventional p-n junction solar cells because of their powerful harvesting efficiency, low cost and ease of fabrication. Up till now, it has been confirmed that Pt is a superior electrocatalyst for use as the counter electrode (CE) in DSCs. Despite this, the large-scale commercial use of Pt-based electrocatalysts as the CE materials for DSCs is not economically viable due to the high cost and scarcity of Pt. The development of high efficiency, cheap and earth-abundant alternative electrocatalysts for triiodide reduction reaction is of a great importance for making a concrete step towards the economically viable large-scale DSC applications.

In this paper, we introduce the recent research results of our group in this field, mainly focusing on CE materials development and device engineering of DSCs as well as in-depth understanding of the closely related charge and energy transfer processes. For instance, we show that quantum chemical calculations combined with the synthesis of Pt nanocrystals with various well-defined crystal shapes can be used to study the catalytic mechanism of I₃^- reduction at Pt electrode [1]. More importantly, for the first time, we developed a general and efficient screening strategy for electrocatalytic activity of the potential non-Pt CE materials using first-principles calculations [2]. We systematically investigated the low-cost inorganic materials using our computation method and successfully identified that the α-Fe₂O₃ mainly bounded by (104) and (012) surface possess the lowest energy barrier and highest reaction kinetics for I₃^-reduction (see Scheme 1). Furthermore, based on this theoretical prediction, we have proposed a new two-step strategy to synthesize RuO₂ catalysts which was used as the high performance CE material in DSCs [3]. The experimental results matched well with computation predictions, demonstrating that computational prediction could be used to guide the CE material development.

Scheme 1. Facet-dependent catalytic activity of platinum nanocrystals and rational screening low-cost counter electrodes for DSCs.
[1] Zhang, B.; Wang, D.; Hou, Y.; Yang, X. H.; Zhong, J. H.; Liu, J.; Wang, H. F.; Hu, P.; Yang, H. G. Facet-dependent catalytic activity of platinum nanocrystals for triiodide reduction in dye-sensitized solar cells. Scientific Reports 2013, 3, 1836. [2] Hou, Y.; Wang, D.; Yang, X. H.; Fang, W. Q.; Zhang, B.; Wang, H. F.; Lu, G. Z.; Hu, P.; Zhao, H. J.; Yang, H. G. Rational screening low-cost counter electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells, Nature Communications 2013, 4, 1583. [3] Hou, Y.; Chen, Z. P.; Wang, D.; Zhang, B.; Yang, S.; Wang, H. F.; Hu, P.; Zhao, H. J.; Yang, H. G. Highly electrocatalytic activity of RuO2 nanocrystals for triiodide reduction in dye-sensitized solar cells. Small 2013, DOI: 10.1002/smll.201300653. (Cover)

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