Antimony tin oxide/lead selenide composite as efficient counter electrode material for quantum dot-sensitized solar cells

Bin Bin Jin; Hui Sheng Huang; Shu Ying Kong; Guo Qing Zhang; Biao Yang; Chu Xing Jiang; Ya Zhou; Dan Jun Wang; Jing Hui Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.073

Antimony tin oxide/lead selenide composite as efficient counter electrode material for quantum dot-sensitized solar cells

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Sep 15:598:492-499. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.073. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Authors

Bin Bin Jin¹, Hui Sheng Huang², Shu Ying Kong², Guo Qing Zhang², Biao Yang², Chu Xing Jiang², Ya Zhou², Dan Jun Wang³, Jing Hui Zeng⁴

Affiliations

¹ Chongqing Key Laboratory of Inorganic Special Functional Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangtze Normal University, Chongqing 408100, China. Electronic address: bbjin001@126.com.
² Chongqing Key Laboratory of Inorganic Special Functional Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangtze Normal University, Chongqing 408100, China.
³ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Yan'an University, Yan'an 716000, China. Electronic address: wangdj761118@163.com.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Science of Shaanxi Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China. Electronic address: nanosci@snnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33951547
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.073

Abstract

Antimony tin oxide (ATO)/lead selenide (PbSe) composite was rationally designed and fabricated on fluorine doped tin oxide glass (FTO) for using as counter electrode (CE) of quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs). The electrocatalytic activity of the CE is deeply investigated in the polysulfide electrolyte by employing the Tafel, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) of the symmetrical cells. The results confirm that the ATO/PbSe CE has better electrocatalytic activity and stability than that of PbSe CE obtained by pulse voltage electrodeposition (PVD). The enhanced electrocatalytic performance of ATO/PbSe CE can be attributed to its high specific surface area, excellent permeability, conductivity and interface connectivity, which provide more electrocatalytic active sites for the reduction of polysulfide species, as well as fast channels for ions diffusion and electron transport. As a result, the CdS QDSSCs and CdS/CdSe co-sensitized QDSSCs assembled by the ATO/PbSe CE exhibits better power conversion efficiency (η) of 1.72% and 5.59%, respectively than that of PbSe CE obtained by PVD. Furthermore, photovoltaic property of the ATO/PbSe CE in CdS/CdSe co-sensitized QDSSCs keeps stable for over 200 min. This present work provides a simple and effective strategy for the construction of high-performance CE materials of QDSSCs.

Keywords: ATO/PbSe composite; Counter electrode; Electrocatalytic activity; Quantum dot-sensitized solar cells.