Porous nanosheet-based hierarchical zinc oxide aggregations grown on compacted stainless steel meshes: Enhanced flexible dye-sensitized solar cells and photocatalytic activity

• The compacted stainless steel meshes (CSSMs) are employed as flexible substrates.
• Porous nanosheet-based hierarchical ZnO aggregations are prepared directly on CSSM.
• The ZnO aggregations/CSSMs structure can be applied in many fields.

Porous nanosheet-based hierarchical ZnO aggregations are prepared on compacted stainless steel meshes (CSSMs) using a facile precursor template method. The coverage density and morphology of the film are controlled by the concentration of alkaline in the precursor solution. Relative to the traditional planar substrate, CSSMs with multi-layered structure have larger surface area and higher porosity to capture more light from all directions. The three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical ZnO aggregations assembled by porous nanosheets could take both the advantages of nanosheets and micrometer-sized assemblies. As expected, combining the virtues of ZnO aggregations and CSSMs, the ZnO aggregations/CSSMs structure exhibit the significantly improved conversion efficiency as photoelectrode of flexible dye-sensitized solar cells and photocatalytic performance in the photodegradation of pollutants with a better recyclability. Furthermore, our work would offer idea for the growth of complex 3D hierarchical micro-/nanoarchitecture on the high curvature surface of the substrates.

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