A novel strategy to prepare a Pt-SnO2 nanocomposite as a highly efficient counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

A novel strategy was introduced to prepare a Pt-SnO2 nanocomposite, in which the reduction of Pt4+ and the exfoliation of SnS2 were performed in one step. The Pt-SnO2 nanocomposite was applied as the counter electrode (CE) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). When compared with the energy conversion efficiency (E-ff) of SnO2 CE based DSCs, the DSCs with Pt-SnO2 CE showed an overall E-ff of 8.83%, giving an improvement of 198%. Meanwhile, better electrocatalytic activity towards I-3/I redox pairs than Pt CE indicated that the Pt-SnO2 nanocomposite was a promising electrocatalyst for DSCs. Moreover, the low Pt content of the Pt-SnO2 nanocomposite would accelerate the large-scale applications of DSCs in the future.