TiO2 composing with pristine, metallic or semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes : which gives the best performance for a dye-sensitized solar cell

• Main Authors: Guai, Guan Hong, Li, Yao, Ng, Chee Mang, Li, Chang Ming, Chan-Park, Mary B.
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/96142; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/10798
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Different types of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), pristine (p-), metallic (m-) and semiconducting (s-) are incorporated into TiO2 photoanodes to improve the dye-sensitized solar-cell (DSSC) performance and their effects on the device performance are further investigated. Although all three types of SWCNTs are found to have comparable structural morphologies and a reduced charge transport resistivity for the photoanodes, only the semiconducting one was able to suppress charge-recombination events, resulting in even greater improvement of DSSC performances. This is very likely to be ascribed to the higher energy barrier of s-SWCNTs compared to both m- and p-SWCNTs to block the back flowing of dye-injected electrons for I3− reduction in the charge recombination process.