Surlyn

The CuCrO₂ film was sintered at 420°C for 40 min then 550°C for 40 min in Ar. After cooled down to about 80°C, the film electrodes were dipped into a 300 μM P1 solution in acetonitrileat room temperature for 16 hrs. After washed with acetonitrile and dried by air flow, the sensitized CuCrO₂ electrodes were assembled with counter electrodes. The working electrodes and counter electrodes were separated by a 45 μm thick hot melt ring (Surlyn, Dupont) and sealed by heating. The internal space was filled with liquid electrolytes using a vacuum back filling system. The electrolyte for devices was 0.3 M T₂ and 0.9 M T⁻ with the tetramethylammonium cation in the mixture of acetonitrile and propylene carbonate (volume ratio, 7:3).
A 450 W xenon light source solar simulator (Oriel, model 9119) with AM 1.5 G filter (Oriel, model 91192) was used to generate an irradiance of 100 mW cm⁻² at the surface of the test cells. The current-voltage characteristics of the cells under these conditions were obtained by applying external potential bias to the cell and measuring the generated photocurrent with a Keithley model 2400 digital source meter (Keithley, USA). A similar data acquisition system was used to control the IPCE measurement. A white light bias (1% sunlight intensity) was applied onto the sample during the IPCE measurements with ac model (10 Hz).

The fabrication of DSCs followed the literature procedure25 (link). Briefly, the 6.5 μm-thick mesoporous TiO₂ films (3.5 μm transparent layer+3.0 μm light scattering layer) were immersed in 100 μM Y123 solution in ACN/t-butanol (v/v, 1/1) for 16 h to graft the dye molecules onto the TiO₂ surface followed by rinsing with ACN and drying with nitrogen flow. The counter electrodes consisted of PEDOT films electrochemically deposited on FTO glass15 (link). The dye-coated TiO₂ working electrode and the counter electrode were assembled by using thermoplastic spacer (Surlyn, DuPont) heating at 120 °C. Electrolytes were injected into the space between the electrodes through predrilled hole on the counter electrode. The hole was sealed by using the thermoplastic sheet and a glass cover. The ssDSCs were obtained by removing the sealing on the hole to evaporate solvents in ambient air.

For photovoltaic applications, the as-prepared ZnO/Zn_xCd_1-xSe coaxial NWs were used as the working electrodes. Nanostructured counter electrode was prepared by sputtering a thin layer of Cu₂S on aluminum zinc oxide (AZO) glass. The two electrodes were sealed together with a 60-μm-thick polypropylene spacer (Surlyn, DuPont, Wilmington, USA), and the internal space of the cell was filled with a polysulfide electrolyte (1.0 M S, 1.0 M Na₂S, and 0.1 M NaOH in deionized water). The active area of the solar cell was about 0.5 cm².

PBAT was sourced from Avient (Auckland, New Zealand), under the trade name Renol 03459 PBAT. Surlyn 9320 (SUR) is a zinc ionomer thermoplastic resin, otherwise described as an ethylene/acid/acylate terpolymer in which some of the methacrylic acid groups have been partially neutralised with zinc oxide. Surlyn™ has a melt flow index (MFI, 2.16 kg, 190 °C) of 0.8 g·10 min⁻¹; it was produced by DuPont and acquired through IMCD, Auckland, New Zealand. Reagent grade itaconic anhydride (IA), dicumyl peroxide (DCP), sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and sodium sulphite (SS) were procured from Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA. Blood meal was obtained from Hawkes Bay protein, Napier, New Zealand, and contained ~5 wt.% moisture.

Counter electrodes were prepared through a three-electrode electrodeposition of an aqueous hexachloroplatinic acid solution (0.002 M) on conductive glass substrates. The electrodeposition was performed using a computer-controlled Function Generator (AMEL, 586) (586, Milano, Italy), a potentiostat–galvanostat (AMEL, 2053) (2053, Milano, Italy) and a noise reducer (AMEL NR 2000) (NR 2000, Milano, Italy).
The sensitized semiconductor electrode and the platinized counter electrode were sealed together using the thermoplastic Surlyn^® (DuPont, Wilmington, DE, USA) silicon. A liquid electrolyte was then inserted in the space between the two electrodes. The EL-HPE High Performance Electrolyte (Dyesol) (Queanbeyan, Australia) was used for all samples. The electrolyte was inserted into the cell with a syringe through a small aperture and the cell was then sealed with silicone. Several different devices were prepared and tested for each type of DSSCs presented in this work to ensure the reproducibility and validity of the results.

Dye-sensitized solar cells were fabricated using a double-layered photoanode made of mesoporous TiO₂ film. A transparent, 9 μm- thick layer of 20 nm particles was screen-printed onto an FTO glass plate (NSG-10, Nippon Sheet Glass). Subsequently, a 5 μm- thick layer of scattering particles (400 nm diameter) was deposited by screen-printing. The surface area of TiO₂ film was 1 cm². The TiO₂ film was sintered up to 500 °C by a stepwise heating program. Prior and after TiO₂ deposition a TiCl₄ treatment was performed on the samples. The BET surface area of the mesoporous transparent film and scattering film were 85 m² g⁻¹ and 27 m² g⁻¹. The values of the two films porosity were 70% and 65% for transparent film and scattering film respectively. Prior to dye loading, photoanodes were sintered again at 480 °C for 30 minutes. Afterward, substrate was cooled down to 80 °C and immersed in the dye solutions for overnight. After rinsing with the acetonitrile, the stained substrates were sealed with pieces of thermally platinized electrode. The platinized electrode was made using a solution of H₂PtCl₆ on FTO glass (TEC15, Pilkington), and served as a counter electrode. The working and counter electrodes were separated by 25 μm-thick hot melt ring (Surlyn, DuPont) and sealed by heating. The electrolytes were introduced to the cells via pre-drilled holes in the counter electrodes.