Copper doped manganese dioxide as counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Many materials have been tried as the counter electrode (CE) material as a substitute to the noble metal Pt in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The CE property is critical to the operation of a DSSC as it catalyzes the reduction of I-3(-) ions and retrieves the electrons from the photoanode. Here we have explored the application of manganese dioxide (MnO2) and copper-doped manganese dioxide (Cu-MnO2) nanoparticles as CE candidates for DSSCs mainly as low-cost alternatives to Pt. A simple hydrothermal method was followed to synthesize alpha-MnO2 and Cu-MnO2 nanopartides at a temperature of 140 degrees C for 14 h. The nanoparticles were characterized to prove its electrocatalytic abilities for DSSCs. DSSC devices fabricated with 10 wt% Cu-MnO(2 )as CE showed the best V-OC of 781 mV, I-SC of 3.69 mA/cm(2), FF of 0.50, and %PCE of 1.7 whereas Pt as CE showed V-OC of 780 mV, I(SC )of 14.8 mA/cm(2), FF of 0.43, and %PCE of 5.83 under 0.85 Sun. The low-cost feature of using Cu-MnO(2 )is encouraging to further study the factors that can improve the efficiency of DSSCs with alternative CEs to conventional Pt electrodes. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.