title: Direct tri-constituent co-assembly of highly ordered mesoporous carbon counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells.
abstract: Controlling over ordered porosity by self-assembly is challenging in the area of materials science. Materials with highly ordered aperture are favorable candidates in catalysis and energy conversion device. Here we describe a facile process to synthesize highly ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) by direct tri-constituent co-assembly method, which uses resols as the carbon precursor, tri-block copolymer F127 as the soft template and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as the inorganic precursor. The obtained products are characterized by small-angle X-ray diffraction (SAXD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) nitrogen sorption-desorption measurement and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The results indicate that the OMC possesses high surface areas of 1209 m(2) g(-1), homogeneous pore size of 4.6 nm and a large pore volume of 1.65 cm(3) g(-1). The advantages of high electrochemical active surface area and favorable accessible porosity of OMC benefit the catalysis of I(3)(-) to I(-). As a result, the OMC counter electrode displays a remarkable property when it was applied in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). For comparison, carbon black (CB) counter electrode and Pt counter electrode have also been prepared. When these different counter electrodes were applied for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), the power-conversion efficiency (η) of the DSSCs with CB counter electrode are measured to be 5.10%, whereas the corresponding values is 6.39% for the DSSC with OMC counter electrode, which is comparable to 6.84% of the cell with Pt counter electrode under the same experimental conditions.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Technology and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structure of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Xiaohua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Niu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Yumin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Chenghao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bu
authors.forename: Shishang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Xing-Zhong
authors.initials: XZ
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D010316:Particle Size; D016062:Porosity; D012821:Silanes / Q000737:chemistry*; D012993:Solar Energy
chemical_list: D004396:Coloring Agents; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D012821:Silanes