Yong Soo Kang

We report remarkably high energy conversion efficiency (4.5% at 100 mW cm(-2)) of a dye-sensitized solar cell in the solid state, using composite polymer electrolytes containing fumed silica nanoparticles.

Abstract The fabrication and functionalization of large‐area graphene and its electrocatalytic properties for iodine reduction in a dye‐sensitized solar cell are reported. The graphene film, grown by thermal chemical vapor deposition, contains three to five layers of monolayer graphene, as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy. Further, the graphene film is treated with CF 4 reactive‐ion plasma and fluorine ions are successfully doped into graphene

Highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with excellent long-term stability were fabricated based on tin(IV) oxide (SnO2) nanocrystals with tunable morphologies and band energy levels. The nanocrystals were prepared by a facile, fast, and energy-saving microwave-assisted solvothermal reaction. Through variation of the precursor base used during nanocrystal synthesis control over morphology was achieved—precursor metal cations are known to have a strong influence on the growth process

Increased overall efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) requires electrolytes with improved ionic conductivity and interfacial contact between the electrolyte and the dye-adsorbed semiconductor nanoparticles in the cell. The supramolecular electrolyte presented here (see Figure) achieves this due to its different behavior in the liquid and solid states.

Hydrophobic polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1) are successfully demonstrated as proton conducting separators in the all-vanadium redox flow battery with the unprecedented infinite proton/vanadium selectivity. A battery fabricated with a nanocomposite comprising a microporous support membrane and nanometer-thick selective PIM layer shows an energy efficiency of up to nearly 99%, while it is also stable during 100 cycles in cyclic performance. As a service to our authors and readers, this

Gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) with molecule-like behavior have emerged as a new light harvester in various energy conversion systems. Despite several important strides made recently, efforts toward the utilization of NCs as a light harvester have been primarily restricted to proving their potency and feasibility. In solar cell applications, ground-breaking research with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of more than 2% has recently been reported. Because of the lack of complete characterization o

Inorganic/organic nanocomposite counter electrodes comprised of sheetlike CoS nanoparticles dispersed in polystyrenesulfonate-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (CoS/PEDOT:PSS) offer a synergistic effect on catalytic performance toward the reduction of triiodide for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), yielding 5.4% power conversion efficiency, which is comparable to that of the conventional platinum counter electrode (6.1%). The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltamme

The ionic conductivity of polymer electrolytes and their interfacial contact with dye-attached TiO2 particles were enhanced markedly by the addition of amorphous oligomer into polymer electrolytes, resulting in very high overall energy conversion efficiency.

Propylene solubility is almost 2-fold higher in 1:1 poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (POZ):AgBF 4 or poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP):AgBF 4 than in 1:1 POZ:AgCF 3 SO 3 or 1:1 PVP:AgCF 3 SO 3, according to our previous work. It is confirmed in this paper that the C C stretching band of propylene coordinated with silver cations in 1:1 PVP:AgBF 4 is about 2-fold more intense than that in 1:1 PVP:AgCF 3 SO 3 . This difference in solubility is investigated here in terms of the differences in the interactions

Three different approaches utilizing oligomers, termed the “oligomer approaches”, followed by in situ self-solidification, were applied successfully to prepare solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. The oligomer approach employs (1) supramolecules containing quadruple hydrogen-bonding sites at both chain ends, (2) oligomer blends with high-molecular-weight polymers, and (3) nanocomposites of oligomer with SiO 2 nanoparticles. The overall energy conversion efficiency was as high as 4.5% at 1 sun

Improving the electro-catalytic activity of graphene has recently been the subject of intense research for high efficiency flexible energy storage and conversion devices. We report the synthesis of a large scale graphene film by a CVD method and its electro-catalytic activity by functionalization with HNO3 for a high efficiency electrochemical electrode in DSSCs. We found that HNO3 functionalization on graphene enhances the tri-iodide reduction rate by three times in a dye sensitized solar cell