High electro-catalytic counter electrode based on three-dimensional conductive grid for dye-sensitized solar cell

•Three-dimensional conductive grid was constructed on the FTO glass.•Pt with smaller size was evenly dispersed in the three-dimensional channels.•Three-dimensional counter electrode improved the performance of DSSC.

Composite photoelectrode with Pt nanoparticles deposited on three-dimensional (3D) fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) conductive grid was fabricated as the counter electrode (CE) of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC), which exhibits larger electrochemical active surface area (9.54 m2/g) and lower charge transfer resistance (2.1 Ω) in iodide/triiodide (I−/I3−) redox electrolyte than the conventional planar counter electrode. The cell efficiency of DSSC with 3D counter electrode was 8.7%, which was 14% higher than that of DSSC with planar counter electrode.

Graphical abstractStructure of DSSC based on 3D counter electrode.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide