Issue 8, 2021

Tailorable boron-doped carbon nanotubes as high-efficiency counter electrodes for quantum dot sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Doping of specific boron species in carbon frameworks plays an important role in enhancing the electrochemical properties of carbon. Herein, we prepared a tailored boron species-doped carbon nanotube (CNT) catalyst as the counter electrode (CE) of quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) by hydrothermal post-treatment of pre-oxidized CNTs. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy results show that boron is mainly present as oxygen-containing (C–O–B) and oxygen-free (C–B) boron in the sp2 carbon framework, so different levels of pre-oxidation treatments can control the content of oxygen-containing boron species and thus achieve controlled doping of boron species. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy shows that the optimized boron-doped CNTs (BCNT1) obtained a charge transfer resistance (Rct) as low as 2.17 Ω, indicating excellent reduction activity to Sn2− at the CE/electrolyte interface. The QDSSC based on the BCNT1 CE and CdS/CdSe photoanode achieves a power conversion efficiency of up to 4.55%, which is 3.10 times that of the pristine CNT CE. Our report confirms that tailorable boron doping is an effective strategy to enhance the activity of CNTs for Sn2− reduction.

Graphical abstract: Tailorable boron-doped carbon nanotubes as high-efficiency counter electrodes for quantum dot sensitized solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Nov 2020
Accepted
01 Feb 2021
First published
01 Feb 2021

Catal. Sci. Technol., 2021,11, 2745-2752

Tailorable boron-doped carbon nanotubes as high-efficiency counter electrodes for quantum dot sensitized solar cells

W. Li, S. Zhang, Q. Chen and Q. Zhong, Catal. Sci. Technol., 2021, 11, 2745 DOI: 10.1039/D0CY02266G

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