Screen printed tin selenide films used as the counter electrodes in dye sensitized solar cells

© 2019 International Solar Energy Society In this work, the scalable screen printing process has been adopted to prepare low-cost and earth-abundant tin selenide (SnSe) films to study as the counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The SnSe powder was synthesized by solid state reaction method and corresponding films were fabricated by screen printing technique. The electrocatalytic activity of SnSe for redox iodide/triiodide (I−/I3−) couple and charge transfer resistance at the CE/electrolyte interface were characterized by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The DSSC with SnSe counter electrode exhibited with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ~5.76% with open-circuit voltage of 0.63 V and short circuit current density of 12.39 mA/cm2 whereas the DSSC with platinum counter electrode showed PCE of 8.09% with open-circuit voltage of 0.68 V and short circuit current density of 14.77 mA/cm2. Thus, earth abundant and low cost SnSe films fabricated by screen printing technique could be an alternative to costly platinum counter electrode in DSSC.