Design and synthesis of hydrogenated carbon and explore its application in perovskite solar cells

Renewable energy is defined as the energy which is derived from sources that are self-replenished. Renewable energy sources produce none to very less greenhouse emissions in comparison with fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources consist of solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, etc. Solar energy is a type of renewable energy which is derived from sun’s radiation, it is clean and sustainable source of energy that can be harnessed using photovoltaic (PV) systems. Perovskite solar cell is one of the latest PV technologies. Perovskite solar cells are one type of thin-film photovoltaic technology which uses organometal halide perovskite materials as the active layer to convert sunlight into electricity. Since its inception in 2009, the power conversion efficiency of PSCs reached 25%. Perovskites solar cells usually use costly noble materials such as gold and platinum as counter electrode. This research is focused on design and synthesis of hydrogenated carbon and use it as a counter electrode on PSCs which can be a cheaper alternative to the currently used costlier noble materials. Reaction and experimental setup were deigned to synthesize hydrogenated carbon, various qualitative analysis was conducted to study it’s the properties. It was also used as a counter electrode on PSCs and performance was tested and compared with the performance of other commercially available carbons. It was concluded that lab synthesized hydrogenated carbon can be used as a counter electrode. The performance of PSCs with hydrogenated carbon as counter electrode was comparable to the results obtained by other researchers in this topic.

Author

• Syed, Tajamul Hussain

Identifier

hdl:10057/28210

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:soar.wichita.edu:10057/28210