Nickel selenide embedded polyaniline nanofibers as a counter electrode for high-performance dye-sensitized solar cell

We report an innovative approach involving the hydrothermal synthesis of nickel selenide (NiSe) nanoparticles, which were subsequently embedded onto polyaniline (PANI) nanofibers through ultrasonic mixing at a weight ratio of 1:1 (NiSe to PANI). The physico-chemical properties of the prepared PANI nanofibers, NiSe nanoparticles and NiSe/PANI nanofibers composite were confirmed by XRD, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy studies. Their morphological and structural analysis confirmed that there is no alteration found when NiSe is decorated onto PANI nanofibers surface. This composite material serves as a proficient counter electrode (CE) in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The electrochemical analyses revealed that NiSe/PANI nanofibers composite CE showed an excellent electrocatalytic activity towards the redox electrolyte than the pristine PANI and pristine NiSe. Further, NiSe/PANI nanofibers composite based DSSC was fabricated and its photoconversion efficiency was found to be 8.46%, which is higher than that of the pristine Pt, PANI and NiSe based CEs. Therefore, NiSe decorated PANI nanofibers composite possibly employed as an alternate CE for DSSC.