In situ growth of zinc oxide nanoribbons within the interstices of a zinc stannate nanoplates network on compacted woven metal wires and their enhanced solar energy application

A novel hybrid film is designed and prepared by in situ growth of ZnO nanoribbons in the interstices of Zn2SnO4 nanoplates network on the compacted woven metal wires through a simple process. The ZnO nanoribbons present in the ZnO/Zn2SnO4 composite film can enhance light harvesting, accelerate electron transport and induce a negative shift in the flat-band potential. Benefiting from its advantageous structure and composition, the ZnO/Zn2SnO4 film can be applied in many fields. For the flexible dye-sensitized solar cells (FDSSCs) employing optimized ZnO/Zn2SnO4 as a photoanode, the conversion efficiency reaches 2.41% corresponding to ∼36.2% improvement relative to the Zn2SnO4 nanoplates-based FDSSCs. Moreover, ZnO/Zn2SnO4-based FDSSC shows relatively good mechanical stability and long-term stability, retaining 95.1% and 93.3% of its initial efficiency after ten consecutive bending tests and after 15 days under sunlight, respectively; Additionally, the immobilized ZnO/Zn2SnO4 on the metal wires exhibits 96.8% photocatalytic degradation efficiency against an organic dye under UV light, and the photocatalytic performance can be restored almost completely by a simple chemical treatment. More importantly, the in situ growth technique demonstrated in this work can be adopted to fabricate other composite oxides on flexible substrates with high curvature surfaces for additional practical applications in flexible devices.