Bimetal Synergetic Strategy of Nickel Iron Selenides to Improve the Catalytic Activity and Cyclic Stability in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Due to the shortage of freshwater resources and uneven distribution, the dye-sensitized solar cell has become an effective strategy to obtain green electric energy. However, the counter electrode (CE) is the bottleneck that restricts the development of this technology. Herein, a novel ternary nickel iron selenide with octahedral structure using a simple solvothermal strategy assisted by d -(+)-glucose (Ni 0.5 Fe 0.5 Se 2 /C) has been designed and applied as CE catalyst for the first time. Profiting from the synergistic effect between Ni and Fe, the simulative cell with the Ni 0.5 Fe 0.5 Se 2 /C CE yields a superior efficiency of 9.37% to corresponding pure selenides, notably outperforming that of conventional Pt CE (8.79%).