Facile construction of a polypyrrole–cobalt sulfide counter electrode for low-cost dye-sensitized solar cells†
RSC Advances Pub Date : 11/26/2021 00:00:00 , DOI:10.1039/D1RA06946B
Abstract

A polypyrrole–cobalt sulfide composite counter electrode (CE) was prepared in this work. Firstly, polypyrrole (PPy) nanorods were prepared by an in situ polymerization method on FTO, then cobalt sulfide (CoS) nanoparticles were coated on PPy nanorods by the electrodeposition method. The DSSC with PPy–CoS CE exhibits superior photoelectric conversion efficiency than that based on platinum (Pt, one of common counter electrodes), which is 7.52%, improving more than 20% compared to Pt CE (6.19%). In addition, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements demonstrated that the PPy–CoS CE exhibited excellent catalytic performance for I3/I solution.

Graphical abstract: Facile construction of a polypyrrole–cobalt sulfide counter electrode for low-cost dye-sensitized solar cells