TY - JOUR
T1 - Transparent platinum counter electrode for efficient semi-transparent dye-sensitized solar cells
AU - Iefanova, Anastasiia
AU - Nepal, Jeevan
AU - Poudel, Prashant
AU - Davoux, Daren
AU - Gautam, Umesh
AU - Mallam, Venkataiah
AU - Qiao, Qiquan
AU - Logue, Brian
AU - Baroughi, Mahdi Farrokh
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon the work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant No. 1102356 , NSF/ EPSCoR Grant No. 0903804 . The authors would like to thank Mr. Paul Ciszek from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for calibrating the reference detectors utilized in the IV measurements and the Fulbright Student Exchange Program administered by the Institute of International Education and sponsored by U.S. Department of State.
PY - 2014/7/1
Y1 - 2014/7/1
N2 - A method for fabrication of highly transparent platinum counter electrodes (CEs) has been developed based on spray coating of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) on hot substrates. This method leads to 86% reduction in Pt consumption reducing the Pt cost per peak watt of counter electrode from $0.79/Wp down to $0.11/Wp compared to the conventional Pt counter electrodes made by sputter deposition. The simplicity and low cost of this method provide a basis for an up-scalable fabrication process. The Pt NP layer is over 88% transparent, leading to overall transparency of 80% when incorporated with indium tin oxide/glass substrates for functional counter electrodes. This counter electrode exhibits a large surface area and high catalytic activity, comparable to that of the conventional opaque CEs. Semi-transparent dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated based on this counter electrode showed 6.17% power conversion efficiency.
AB - A method for fabrication of highly transparent platinum counter electrodes (CEs) has been developed based on spray coating of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) on hot substrates. This method leads to 86% reduction in Pt consumption reducing the Pt cost per peak watt of counter electrode from $0.79/Wp down to $0.11/Wp compared to the conventional Pt counter electrodes made by sputter deposition. The simplicity and low cost of this method provide a basis for an up-scalable fabrication process. The Pt NP layer is over 88% transparent, leading to overall transparency of 80% when incorporated with indium tin oxide/glass substrates for functional counter electrodes. This counter electrode exhibits a large surface area and high catalytic activity, comparable to that of the conventional opaque CEs. Semi-transparent dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated based on this counter electrode showed 6.17% power conversion efficiency.
KW - Dye-sensitized solar cells
KW - Pt nanoparticles
KW - Transparent counter electrode
KW - Transparent solar cells
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84901779024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84901779024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.tsf.2014.03.075
DO - 10.1016/j.tsf.2014.03.075
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84901779024
SN - 0040-6090
VL - 562
SP - 578
EP - 584
JO - Thin Solid Films
JF - Thin Solid Films
ER -