Plasma-based preparation of polyaniline/graphene and polypyrrole/graphene composites for dye-sensitized solar cells as counter electrodes

ABSTRACT

This study presents the preparation of graphene (GR) nanocomposites with polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy) through the fast, versatile and environmentally friendly process of radio frequency (RF)-plasma polymerization. Morphological characterization of the nanocomposites is performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and shows that the PANI and PPy conducting polymers coated the GR surface. The surface properties of the GR nanocomposites are determined using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The prepared GR nanocomposites are then used as counter electrodes in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The conversion cell efficiencies for iodine-doped DSSC samples are found to be 0.086%, 5.41%, and 5.60% for I₂-PANI, I₂-PANI-GR and I₂-PPy-GR, respectively, while the corresponding undoped samples reaches power conversion efficiencies of 3.82%, 1.30%, and 0.077% for PPy-GR, PANI-GR and PANI, respectively. The incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) of iodine-doped composite-based DSSCs is significantly enhanced.

KEYWORDS:

• dye-sensitized solar cells
• graphene
• plasma polymerization
• polyaniline
• polypyrrole

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK; Project no. 114M867), by bilateral project SAS- TÜBİTAK JRP 2014/2 (Slovakia) and by project VEGA 02/0010/18.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK-114M867), VEGA (02/0010/18), Slovenská Akadémia Vied (JRP 2014/2).