A simple route to making counter electrode for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using sucrose as carbon precursor

Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted much attention in recent years due to low cost fabrication as compared to silicon-based and thin film solar cells. Though, platinum is an excellent catalytic material for use in preparation of counter electrodes (CEs) for DSSCs it is expensive. Alternatives to replacement of platinum (Pt) that have been examined are carbon materials, conductive polymers and hybrids. In this work, counter electrode for DSSCs was fabricated using carbon material obtained from graphitization of sucrose at high temperature. A slurry of the carbon produced from sucrose graphitization was made with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a surfactant and a coating was obtained by doctor blading the slurry over the FTO glass substrate. The current density (Jsc) and open circuit voltage (V-OC) of fabricated cell (area 0.25 cm(2)) was 10.28 mA cm(-2) and 0.76 V respectively. The efficiency of the cell was 4.33% which was just slightly lower than that obtained for similar cells using platinum based counter electrode. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved