Noble metals (Ag, Au, Pt) functionalized carbon nanohorns as alternate counter electrodes for dye sensitized solar cells

Noble metals (Ag, Au, Pt) functionalized single wall carbon nanohorns (Ag-SWCNHs, Au-SWCNHs, Pt-SWCNHs) are incorporated as a catalysts of counter electrodes (CEs) and used for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) applications. Pt-SWCNHs based counter electrodes showed excellent electrocatalytic performance, low charge transfer resistance, low internal resistance and higher current density values than the Ag, Au functionalized SWCNHs and also pure platinum and pristine single wall carbon nanohorns CEs. Compared with pure platinum (η = 5.30 %) and pristine SWCNHs (η = 4.84 %) based test cells, the DSSCs made with Pt-SWCNHs gave (η = 6.07 %) an remarkable improvement of 14.52 and 25.41 % respectively. Test cells of Ag-SWCNHs, Au-SWCNHs contributed efficiency of 5.59 and 5.21 % respectively.