Urea treated WO3 and SnO2 as cost effective and efficient counter electrodes of dye sensitized solar cells

Hytham Elbohy, Khan Mamun Reza, Eman Gamal, Salem Abdulkarim, Ashim Gurung, Geetha Varnekar, Muhammad Hassan Sayyad, Qiquan Qiao

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

A novel method was developed to convert the electro-catalytically inactive commercial WO3 and SnO2 into high efficient WO3-x and SnO2-x counter electrodes for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSs) to replace Pt. Both WO3 and SnO2 was treated with Urea with different Urea mass ratio concentrations and annealed under N2 environment at 500°C. The energy conversion efficiency (PEC) was significantly improved by urea treatment with 8.57% compared to 2.91 % for non-treated CE in case of WO3 and increases from 2.76 % for non-treated CE to 8.7 % after urea treatment in case of SnO2. All other characterizations performed for urea treated WO3 and SnO2 support the hypothesis of creating oxygen vacancies inside the metal oxides by the treatment. These oxygen vacancies facilitate the redox process in iodide/trioxide electrolyte. The density of these oxygen vacancies could be controlled by controlling the urea concentration during the treatment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2016 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology, EIT 2016
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages477-481
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9781467399852
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 5 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event2016 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology, EIT 2016 - Grand Forks, United States
Duration: May 19 2016May 21 2016

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology
Volume2016-August
ISSN (Print)2154-0357
ISSN (Electronic)2154-0373

Conference

Conference2016 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology, EIT 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityGrand Forks
Period5/19/165/21/16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Information Systems
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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