Fuel-assisted polyol reduction for highly transparent and efficient Pt counter electrodes in bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

We report a comprehensive investigation of the synthesis of highly transparent and efficient platinum (Pt) counter electrodes (CEs) for bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using a fuel-assisted polyol reduction method. By employing various fuels, such as glycine, acetylacetone, citric acid, and fmoc-glycine, as energy donors during the Pt reduction process, we systematically examined the electrocatalytic activity of the resulting Pt CEs towards the iodine-based liquid electrolyte. Our findings demonstrate that fmoc-glycine emerges as the most promising fuel, enabling the fabrication of Pt CEs with outstanding electrocatalytic abilities and an impressive transmittance exceeding 97% through the FTO glass. Moreover, the optimized DSSCs achieved remarkable front-illuminated and back-illuminated efficiencies of 6.28 ± 0.15% and 5.64 ± 0.27%, respectively, surpassing the efficiencies of DSSCs without fuel addition (5.76 ± 0.11% and 4.46 ± 0.34%). The careful selection of the fuel played a pivotal role in determining the properties of the Pt CEs, ultimately influencing the overall performance of the DSSCs. This study underscores the significance of fuel-assisted synthesis techniques in achieving highly efficient Pt CEs for bifacial DSSCs.