Open Access

ARTICLE

Sunflower-Like SrCo₂S₄@f-MWCNTs Hybrid Wrapped by Engineering N-Reduced Graphene Oxide for High Performance Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Weiming Zhang¹, Muhammad Wasim Khan¹, Xueqin Zuo¹, Qun Yang¹, Huaibao Tang^1,2, Shaowei Jin^1,2, Guang Li^1,2,3,*

1 School of Physics and Materials Science, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China
2 Anhui Key Laboratory of Information Materials and Devices, Hefei, 230601, China
3 Institute of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

* Corresponding Author: Guang Li. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Renewable materials for sustainable development)

Journal of Renewable Materials 2020, 8(4), 431-446. https://doi.org/10.32604/jrm.2020.09158

Received 16 November 2019; Accepted 19 February 2020; Issue published 24 April 2020

Abstract

A novel sunflower-like nanocomposite of SrCo₂S₄ nanoflakes and functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) entanglement enveloped in nitrogen-reduced graphene oxide (N-RGO) is prepared by a cheap process. The unique entanglement structure of the material exhibits higher specific surface area, better electrical conductivity and other properties. This helps to reduce the transfer resistance in the photoelectric process of the battery and improve the electrochemical activity, thus increasing the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the battery. The new ternary cobalt-based sulfide material can replace platinum as the counter electrode (CE) material loaded on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). DSSCs with SrCo₂S₄@f-MWCNTs@N-RGO (SCS@f-M@N-R) as CE material show excellent photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE, 8.06%), even surpassing than that of Pt CE material (7.51%). The low cost, excellent electrocatalytic performance and simple preparation method of SCS@f-M@N-R nanomaterial provide feasibility for replacing platinum material as the CE material of DSSCs, which is of great significance and persuasion.

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