In-situ synthesis of molybdenum sulfide/reduced graphene oxide porous film as robust counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Junliang Chen; Dapeng Wu; Hongju Wang; Fujuan Wang; Yixin Wang; Zhiyong Gao; Fang Xu; Kai Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.04.046

In-situ synthesis of molybdenum sulfide/reduced graphene oxide porous film as robust counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Aug 15:524:475-482. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.04.046. Epub 2018 Apr 11.

Authors

Junliang Chen¹, Dapeng Wu², Hongju Wang³, Fujuan Wang³, Yixin Wang³, Zhiyong Gao⁴, Fang Xu³, Kai Jiang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China; Henan Key Lab Boron Chemistry & Advanced Energy Mat, Xinxiang 453007, Henan, PR China. Electronic address: dpengwu@126.com.
³ Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China; School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China.
⁴ Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China; Henan Key Lab Boron Chemistry & Advanced Energy Mat, Xinxiang 453007, Henan, PR China.
⁵ School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China. Electronic address: jiangkai6898@126.com.

PMID: 29677616
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.04.046

Abstract

Molybdenum sulfide/reduced graphene oxide (MoS₂/RGO) porous film was in-situ deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates via a one-pot hydrothermal method. Due to the oxygen-containing groups distributing on graphene oxide (GO) surface, the MoS₂ sheets could nucleate and grow taking GO as substrates and the MoS₂/RGO film can be strongly linked to the FTO. Based on the electrochemical investigations, the enhanced cell performance could be ascribed to the improved electrical conductivity, catalytic active sites and electrolyte diffusion rate, which finally contribute to the high catalytic performance on the reduction of I^-/I₃^- couples in the electrolyte. Therefore, the cell adopting as-prepared MoS₂/RGO as counter electrode demonstrated high power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 7.63%, which indicates ∼14% enhancement compared with the MoS₂-based (6.68%) device.

Keywords: Counter electrode; Dye-sensitized solar cells; Graphene; MoS(2); Nanomaterials.