Ordered mesoporous carbon-decorated reduced graphene oxide as efficient counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Due to the advantages of both rapid electron transport of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheet and high catalytic performance of ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC), composites of OMC with rGO (G@OMC) have been prepared through the hard-template approach and used as efficient counter electrode (CE) materials for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). When compared with pure OMC, the as-obtained G@OMC composites exhibit a higher electrocatalytic activity for the reduction of triiodide, owing to the synergetic effect between rGO and OMC. As a consequence, the DSSCs assembled with this G@OMC (CE show an improved photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 6.38% compared with 5.67% for DSSCs assembled with OMC CE, which could compete with the efficiency (7.05%) produced by the Pt CE under the same conditions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.