A room-temperature process for fabricating a nano-Pt counter electrode on a plastic substrate for efficient dye-sensitized cells

•Nanosized Pt is deposited on plastic substrate using a solution process.•This plastic electrode is used for the counter electrode for dye solar cell.•The performance of this counter electrode is as high as 1 Ω cm2 and 8.8%.•This counter electrode passes thermal stability test at 60 °C for 1000 h.

We present a method for depositing polyvinylpyrrolidone-capped platinum nanoparticles (PVP-nPt) on a plastic substrate as the counter electrode (CE) for dye-sensitized cells. This method was implemented using a modified two-step dip-coating process performed under ambient conditions. In particular, a short UV-ozone exposure period was adopted to replace conventional annealing, rendering the whole process feasible for plastic substrates. The surfactant required for deposition was confirmed by analyzing a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectrum; however, we discovered that the surfactant jeopardized charge transfer between the PVP-nPt CE and the substrate. Furthermore, the UV-ozone treatment efficiently decomposed the surfactant, and the electrochemical-catalytic property improved considerably. When the CE was combined with a dye-sensitized photoanode fabricated on a plastic substrate, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) reached 6.24%. To further prove that the PCE is limited by the plastic photoanode instead of the proposed plastic PVP-nPt CE, a photoanode fabricated on FTO glass and the proposed plastic PVP-nPt CE with a PCE of 8.80% was demonstrated. Finally, thermal aging (conducted at 60 °C, 1000 h) test on this device indicated excellent durability, and the PCE was only 1% lower than its initial value.