One-Step Fabrication of Unique Mesoporous NiO Hollow Sphere Film on FTO for High-Performance P-Type Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

• Main Authors: Yang, Hong Bin, Liu, Bin, Khoo, Si Yun, Zhu, Lin Nan, Guo, Chun Xian, Dong, Yong Qiang, Li, Chang Ming
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: hollow sphere; dye-sensitized solar cells
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81641; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/40869
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

P-type dye sensitized solar cells (p-DSCs) deliver much lower overall efficiency than their inverse model, n-DSCs. However, they have fundamental and practical significance, in particular, their tandem structured solar cells with both p- and n-photoelectrodes could offer great potential to significantly improve the efficiency of existing solar cells. A facile and environmentally friendly method is developed to directly one-step grow hollow NiO spherical structures on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate, in which a Ni2+ and polymer complex spherical structure is self-constructed through a controlled solvent evaporation process, followed by calcination-converting to a unique NiO hollow sphere film. The prepared material is further used as a photocathode in p-type dye sensitized solar cells, resulting in 41% increase of an open-circuit voltage and 18% enhancement of power conversion efficiency than NiO nanoparticles photocathode. The improved performance can be ascribed to suppressed charge recombination at the photocathode/electrolyte interface. This template-free approach could be universally used to fabricate other nanostructured hollow spheres for a wide range of energy conversion applications such as electrochemical capacitors, chemical sensors, and electrochromic devices.