Optimizing Dye Adsorption in Graphene–TiO2 Photoanodes for the Enhancement of Photoconversion Efficiency of DSSC Devices

We report on the effect of graphene (G) incorporation in TiO
₂
photoanodes (PAs) for improving their dye adsorption capacity, which in turn impacts the overall photoconversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). By varying the graphene content of TiO
₂
PAs (over the 0.05–1 wt.% range), the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the DSSCs was found to increase significantly from 3.0% for standard TiO
₂
to a maximum value of 8.2% for PAs containing 0.1 wt. % of graphene. This corresponds to a PCE improvement of ∼173% in comparison with standard DSSCs made with TiO
₂
alone (without graphene). On the other hand, by performing thermogravimetric analyses to quantify the dye adsorption capacity of the TiO
₂
–G PAs, we were able to establish, for the first time, a direct correlation between the PCE of the DSSCs and the dye uptake of their G–TiO
₂
-based PAs. Our results demonstrate that by coupling the optimal PA (with the optimal graphene content of 0.1 wt.% and optimal sensitization with a solution of 4 mM of N719) with Co–Ni nanoparticles decorated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) based counter electrodes, we were able to achieve DSSCs exhibiting a PCE as high as 9.8%. This performance is quite impressive particularly considering that no platinum was used in the counter electrode.