Graphene based photoanode for DSSCs with high performances

Abstract

Graphene assisted photoanodes are promising because of the high performance of the resulting dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). A photoanode with a three-layer structure is prepared in this study and the synergy between each layer was found to play a vital role in its photovoltaic properties. The influence of interface contact between the transport layer and work layer is revealed. After ameliorating the interface contact level (enhancing the electron transport ability), the functions of the adopted reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and three-dimensional graphene networks (3DGNs) in the transport layer and work layer, respectively, can be made full use of. In order to further enhance the scattering ability for the incident light and improve the adsorption ability for dye molecules, a scattering layer based on the RGO–TiO₂ is added in the photoanode. After a comprehensive optimization (including the types of functional groups and mass fractions of the RGO in the work layer and scattering layer), the resulting power conversion efficiency reaches 11.8%, which is much higher than that of previous reported graphene modified DSSCs.