Electrophoretic deposition of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets ontio2nanotube arrays for dye-sensitized solar cells

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Abstract

In the present work, electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is used to deposit reduced graphene oxide (RGO)nanosheets onto a TiO2nanotube array for application as photoelectrode in dye-sensitized solar cells(DSSCs). The as-deposited RGO nanosheets are very uniform and can be obtained with controllable thick-ness. Due to the enhanced electronic conductivity caused by RGO, the short-circuit current of DSSCsbased on RGO-modified TiO 2nanotube arrays is much higher than that of DSSCs based on unmodifiedTiO2nanotube arrays. In addition, the short-circuit current (Jsc) increases with longer EPD time for RGOdeposition but decreases with increased EPD time later; a peak value of 8.87 mA cm-2is reached for Jscat an EPD time of 30 s. Therefore, DSSC based on TiO 2nanotubes (6.8 μm long) modified using EPD time30 s delivers the highest energy conversion efficiency of 4.10%, while DSSC consisting of bare nanotubesexhibits efficiency of 2.97% and short-circuit current of 6.24 mA cm-2, which represents a 38.0% enhancement of energy conversion efficiency in DSSC consisting of TiO2nanotubes modified with RGO comparedto that of DSSC based on bare nanotubes. Moreover, RGO-deposition on longer bamboo-type TiO2nano-tube arrays (16.8 μm long) can further increase the energy conversion efficiencies to 6.01% by utilizinghigher surface area of bamboo-type nanotubes for dye loading.© 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Electrochimica Acta

First Page

216

Last Page

222

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