The charge transport characterization of the polyaniline coated carbon fabric as a novel textile based counter electrode for flexible dye-sensitized solar cell

Implementation of textile based counter electrode with appreciable photovoltaic performances is a persistent objective for flexible dye-sensitized solar cells. The polyaniline (PANi) coated carbon fabric (CF) is launched as a novel flexible textile based counter electrode (CE) using different polymerization methods including chemical oxidation polymerization (COP), chemical vapor polymerization (CVP) and electropolymerization (EP) in current investigation. The electropolymerized PANi counter electrode exhibits lower charge transfer resistance (Rct) of 0.91 ohm cm2 compared to CVP (1.89 ohm cm2) and COP (12.18 ohm cm2) techniques. As a result, electropolymerized PANi represents higher conductivity, more porosity and higher order of molecular structure which facilitates charge transfer on the counter electrode/electrolyte interface and provides sufficient electrocatalytic activity towards reduction of tri-iodide (I3−). In addition, electropolymerized PANi shows lower charge transfer than that of Pt (0.94 ohm cm2) as well as an over 7% improvement in open circuit voltage at commendable overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.81%. Remarkably, the advantageous of low cost, easy and reproducible PANi synthesis, and flexible, cheap and chemical stable carbon fabric, opens up new opportunities in the development of high performance flexible textile based solar cell for energy supply in smart textiles applications.