화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Catalysis, Vol.351, 19-32, 2017
Economical nanocomposites of cobalt or nickel species and polyaniline-derived N-doped mesoporous carbons for dye-sensitized solar cells as counter electrodes
Nanocomposites of cobalt or nickel species and N-doped mesoporous carbon (Co-N-MC or Ni-N-MC) were prepared by in situ polymerized mesoporous silica-supported polyaniline (PANI) and then explored as the counter electrodes (CEs) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). It is shown that Co-N-MC and Ni-N-MC significantly improve the electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of I-3 compared to N-MC. These are attributed to combining high electrical conductivity of N-doped mesoporous carbon and high electrocatalytic activity of Co or Ni species into one material. The I/I-3 -based DSC using Ni-N-MC CE could reach a cell efficiency of 8.42%, which surpassed the efficiency of the DSC employing traditional platinized CE (8.22%). In addition, all N-doped mesoporous (N-MC (5.90%), Co-N-MC (6.80%), and Ni-N-MC (6.95%)) based DSCs showed higher performance than the cells with a platinized CE (5.25%) for the regeneration of organic redox couple, di-5-(1-methyltetrazole) disulfide/5-mercapto-1-methyltetrazole N-tetramethylammonium salt (T-2/T ). (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.