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Nano Research 2016, 9(10): 2862-2874 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1172-0
Research Article | Issue | Published: 08 July 2016

Hexagonal FeS nanosheets with high-energy (001) facets: Counter electrode materials superior to platinum for dye-sensitized solar cells

Show Author's Information Xiuwen Wang1,  Ying Xie1,  Buhe Bateer1,2,  Kai Pan1( ),  Yangtao Zhou1,  Yi Zhang1,  Guofeng Wang1,  Wei Zhou1,  Honggang Fu1( )
Key Laboratory of Functional Inorganic Material ChemistryMinistry of Education of the People's Republic of ChinaHeilongjiang UniversityHarbin150080China
College of Materials and Chemical EngineeringHeilongjiang Institute of TechnologyHarbin150050China
Keywords:
catalytic reduction, FeS nanosheets, high-energy facets, counter electrode, first-principles calculation
Cite this article:
Wang X, Xie Y, Bateer B, et al. Hexagonal FeS nanosheets with high-energy (001) facets: Counter electrode materials superior to platinum for dye-sensitized solar cells. Nano Research, 2016, 9(10): 2862-2874. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1172-0
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

The catalytic activity of materials is highly dependent on their composition and surface structure, especially the density of low-coordinated surface atoms. In this work, we have prepared two-dimensional hexagonal FeS with high-energy (001) facets (FeS-HE-001) via a solution-phase chemical method. Nanosheets (NSs) with exposed high-energy planes usually possess better reaction activity, so FeS-HE-001 was used as a counter electrode (CE) material for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). FeS-HE-001 achieved an average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.88% (with the PCE of champion cells being 9.10%), which was almost 1.15 times higher than that of the Pt-based DSSCs (7.73%) measured in parallel. Cyclic voltammetry and Tafel polarization measurements revealed the excellent electrocatalytic activities of FeS-HE-001 towards the I 3–/I– redox reaction. This can be attributed to the promotion of photoelectron transfer, which was measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and scanning Kelvin probe, and the strong I 3– adsorption and reduction activities, which were investigated using first-principles calculations. The presence of high-energy (001) facets in the NSs was an important factor for improving the catalytic reduction of I 3–. We believe that our method is a promising way for the design and synthesis of advanced CE materials for energy harvesting.


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About this article

Hexagonal FeS nanosheets with high-energy (001) facets: Counter electrode materials superior to platinum for dye-sensitized solar cells

Show Author's information Xiuwen Wang1, Ying Xie1, Buhe Bateer1,2, Kai Pan1( ), Yangtao Zhou1, Yi Zhang1, Guofeng Wang1, Wei Zhou1, Honggang Fu1( )
Key Laboratory of Functional Inorganic Material ChemistryMinistry of Education of the People's Republic of ChinaHeilongjiang UniversityHarbin150080China
College of Materials and Chemical EngineeringHeilongjiang Institute of TechnologyHarbin150050China

Abstract

The catalytic activity of materials is highly dependent on their composition and surface structure, especially the density of low-coordinated surface atoms. In this work, we have prepared two-dimensional hexagonal FeS with high-energy (001) facets (FeS-HE-001) via a solution-phase chemical method. Nanosheets (NSs) with exposed high-energy planes usually possess better reaction activity, so FeS-HE-001 was used as a counter electrode (CE) material for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). FeS-HE-001 achieved an average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.88% (with the PCE of champion cells being 9.10%), which was almost 1.15 times higher than that of the Pt-based DSSCs (7.73%) measured in parallel. Cyclic voltammetry and Tafel polarization measurements revealed the excellent electrocatalytic activities of FeS-HE-001 towards the I 3–/I– redox reaction. This can be attributed to the promotion of photoelectron transfer, which was measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and scanning Kelvin probe, and the strong I 3– adsorption and reduction activities, which were investigated using first-principles calculations. The presence of high-energy (001) facets in the NSs was an important factor for improving the catalytic reduction of I 3–. We believe that our method is a promising way for the design and synthesis of advanced CE materials for energy harvesting.

Keywords: catalytic reduction, FeS nanosheets, high-energy facets, counter electrode, first-principles calculation

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 20 April 2016
Revised: 02 June 2016
Accepted: 07 June 2016
Published: 08 July 2016
Issue date: October 2016

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of this research by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21473051 and 21371053), Application Technology Research and Development Projects in Harbin (No. 2013AE4BW051) and International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (No. 2014DFR41110).

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