9.07%-Efficiency dye-sensitized solar cell from Pt-free RuCoSe ternary alloy counter electrode

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a promising solution to relieve global energy crisis and environmental issues because of its superiority in low cost, easy fabrication procedures and relatively high efficiency. The decrease of fabrication cost without sacrifice of power conversion efficiency of the DSSCs can doubtlessly contribute to its commercial application. Here we report a new Pt-free RuCoSe ternary alloy counter electrode (CE) by electrodepositing. The DSSC device with RuCoSe ternary alloy CE achieves a power conversion efficiency of 9.07%, which is higher than 7.03% from Pt-only CE based DSSC. The easy preparation method and promising results provide a new method for decreasing cost but enhancing photovoltaic performance of DSSCs.