Facile Synthesis of Polyaniline-Single Wall Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposite as Hole Transport Material and Zinc Oxide Nanorodes as Metal Oxide to Integration Solid-State Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Novel low-cost Polyaniline (PANI)-single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT or SWCNT) nanocomposite - based hole transport materials (HTMs) as substitutes to the expensive HTM Spiro-OMeTAD have been synthesized and designed for the applications in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSCs). The HTMs were prepared through a facile steps reaction from cheap starting material. These HTMs exhibit good solubility and charge-transport ability. The DSSCs based on PANI-SWNTs achieved power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.55% under air conditions, that is comparable to the cells employing the normally used Spiro-OMeTAD (1.827%). For DSSCs, we found that the solar cells synthesized based on vertical ZnO nanowire arrays by using a mixture paste of PMII, LiI and solid iodine as electrolyte SWNT enable better photovoltaic performance than that of pure PANI. These results show that easily synthesized PANI-SWNTs- HTMs have great prospect to replace the expensive Spiro-OMeTAD for DSSCs.