Novel High Pressure Exfoliated Graphene-Based Semitransparent Stable DSSCs for Building Integrated Photovoltaics

Integrating dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with a building’s architecture is required for its commercialization. Coupling semitransparent designer DSSCs with windows has the dual benefit of providing daylighting and power generation. To achieve this, we report a low-cost, novel, high-pressure exfoliation technique for graphene and utilize it as a transparent counter electrode for fabrication of semitransparent DSSCs. By adopting environmentally friendly and economic exfoliated graphene instead of conventional platinum, the overall device cost comes down. The electrocatalytic behavior of fabricated transparent graphene counter electrode was assessed using cyclic voltammetry, Tafel plot in symmetry cell configuration, and impedance spectroscopy. We have fabricated DSSC with >70% transmittance in the visible spectrum, which gives promising power conversion efficiency of 3.19%. The fabricated cells were stable for more than 500 h under constant illumination with no significant efficiency drop. Also, we have fabricated designer semitransparent DSSCs using various symbols.