Single Walled Carbon Nanohorns as Catalytic Counter Electrodes for Co(III)/(II) Electron Mediators in Dye Sensitized Cells

Stefano Carli; Laura Casarin; Zois Syrgiannis; Rita Boaretto; Elisabetta Benazzi; Stefano Caramori; Maurizio Prato; Carlo Alberto Bignozzi

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b03803

Single Walled Carbon Nanohorns as Catalytic Counter Electrodes for Co(III)/(II) Electron Mediators in Dye Sensitized Cells

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Jun 15;8(23):14604-12. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b03803. Epub 2016 Jun 6.

Authors

Stefano Carli¹, Laura Casarin¹, Zois Syrgiannis², Rita Boaretto¹, Elisabetta Benazzi¹, Stefano Caramori¹, Maurizio Prato^{2

3

4}, Carlo Alberto Bignozzi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Ferrara , Via Fossato di Mortara 17, 44121 Ferrara, Italy.
² Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Trieste , Piazzale Europa 1, 34127 Trieste, Italy.
³ Carbon Nanobiotechnology Laboratory, CIC biomaGUNE, Paseo de Miramón 182, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain.
⁴ Basque Fdn Sci, Ikerbasque, Bilbao 48013, Spain.

PMID: 27227738
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b03803

Abstract

The electrochemical properties of both pristine single walled carbon nanohorns (SWCNHS) and their chemically oxidized form (ox-SWCNHS) spray coated onto fluorine doped SnO2 (FTO) were investigated in the framework of the fabrication of cobalt based transparent dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). These new nanocarbon substrates, evaluated in conjunction with the Co(bpy)3(2+/3+) (bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine) redox mediator, are endowed with excellent electrocatalytic properties, ease of fabrication, and very promising stability and display a great potential for replacing the best noble metal and conductive polymer catalytic materials in the building of semitransparent counter electrodes in new generation photoelectrochemical devices.

Keywords: PEDOT; cobalt redox mediators; dye sensitized solar cells; electrochemical impedance spectroscopy; single walled carbon nanohorns.