Carbon Xerogels Used as Alternative to Platinum for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Vincenzo Baglio^a, Antonino S. Aricò^a, Maria Rita Girolamo^a, Cintia Alegre^a, Maria Jesus Lazaro^b

^aCNR-ITAE, Salita S. Lucia sopra Contesse, 5, Messina, 98126, Italy

^bCSIC-ICB, C/Miguel Luesma Castán 4, Zaragoza, 50018

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics 2015 (HOPV15)

Roma, Italy, 2015 May 11th - 13th

Organizer: Filippo De Angelis

Poster, Maria Rita Girolamo, 323
Publication date: 5th February 2015

Carbon gels are porous materials with a reticular structure formed by interconnected spherical carbon nanoparticles. The versatility of their properties in terms of structure, form and texture favours their application in many fields: catalysis, energy conversion and storage, etc. Among the different types of carbon gels existing, carbon xerogels (CXG) have been widely used, given their low-cost production and good properties (high surface area, mesoporosity, high purity, etc). In this work, CXGs properties were modified varying the synthesis conditions: resorcinol to sodium carbonate molar ratio (CXG-RC-n, with n= 50 ; 800 or 1050). CXGs were physico-chemicallycharacterizedand tested as counter electrode in dye sensitized solar cells. Performance was assessed by voltamperometric polarization and impedance measurements under AM1.5 illumination. These materials showed good perspectives to replace Pt counter electrodes in dye sensitized solar cells. Acknowledgments: CNR-ITAE authors acknowledge the financial support from Progetto POR Sagro - Linea di intervento 4.1.1.1 del POR FESR Sicilia 2007-2013. M.J.L. thanks the financial support from the Spanish Government throughout the project CTQ2011-28913-C02-01.

nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.

MATSUS

Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics

The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.

International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics

The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.