Fabrication of a counter electrode using glucose as carbon material for dye sensitized solar cells

Carbon material was produced from the graphitization of glucose at high temperature in flowing argon. The produced carbon material was characterized using Scanning electron microscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and XRD. Carbon slurry of the produced carbon was made in ethanol by using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as surfactant. Carbon slurry was coated homogeneously on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by a doctor blade technique and applied as counter electrode for dye synthesized solar cell. The current density (J) and open circuit voltage (VOC) of fabricated cell was 8.30 mA cm−2 and 0.77 V respectively. The efficiency of the cell was 3.63%, which is comparable to 5.82% of cell with platinum counter electrode under the same experimental conditions.