Activated coconut shell charcoal based counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Current studies on dye-sensitized solar cells are mainly focus on fabricating low-cost cell with high performances. Cost of dye-sensitized solar cells depends mainly on the counter electrode material where the best catalyst for triiodide reduction at the counter electrode is platinum, which is highly expensive. Among various non-platinum counter electrode catalysts, carbon-based materials stand out to be the best alternative as far as low-cost and ready abundance are concerned. A simple procedure is described for producing high electrical conductivity activated charcoal from coconut shells and depositing it on conducting tin oxide glass as a thin film, to be used as the counter electrode for dye-sensitized electrolytic solar cells. The activated coconut shell charcoal catalytic layer which is subjected to this work had very good adhesion between the particles as well as to the conducting tin oxide glass substrate. The efficiency of 7.85% obtained exceeds, values obtained from other forms of activated carbon derived from bio-materials.