Page 422 - Polymer-based Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications

Polymer nanocomposites for dye-sensitized solar cells 379

2 film and CVs of
Fig. 13.13 SEM micrograph (A) and a digital photograph (B) of PANI-SO 4
electropolymerized-PANI CEs doped by different counter ions and Pt-CEs in 10 mM LiI, 1 mM
I 2 , and 0.1 M LiClO 4 acetonitrile solution (C).
Reproduced with permission from Li Z, Ye B, Hu X, Ma X, Zhang X, Deng Y. Facile
electropolymerized-PANI as counter electrode for low cost dye-sensitized solar cell.
Electrochem Commun 2009;11:1768–71.

the hypothesis that different counter ions would give distinctive impact on the mor-
phology of electropolymerized PANI on FTO. Electropolymerized-PANI films doped
2 ions exhibited much porous morphology, greater magnitude of the cata-
with SO 4
lytic peak current, and excellent electrochemical stability (Fig. 13.13). They obtained
2
5.6% and 6.0% PCE from PANI-SO 4 and Pt-CE based DSC, respectively.
Polypyrrole (PPy) is another conductive polymer used as CEs in DSCs. Alike
PANI, it has prominent features, such as good catalytic ability, thermal stability
(up to 150°C in air) [74], low cost, and high polymerization yield. The performance
of PPy-based CE is significantly affected by the film thickness, morphology, dopants,
and synthesis procedure [48].Wuetal. [69] synthesized PPy nanoparticles with diam-
eter of 40–60 nm and coated them on FTO-glass to obtain porous PPy film. SEM
image of PPy-coated FTO-glass, cyclic voltammograms for PPy and Pt electrode,
and J-V curves of the corresponding DSCs are given in Fig. 13.14. According to
CV results, PPy electrode had smaller R ct and higher electrocatalytic activity for
the I /I redox reaction than the Pt electrode. The PCE of PPy-CE-based DSC
3
was calculated as 7.66%, which was also 11% higher than Pt-CE-based one.