NiO-decorated mesoporous TiO2 flowers for an improved photovoltaic dye sensitized solar cell

Reducing light-induced e-h recombination is important for a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC); the p-type NiO component in TiO2-NiO nanoparticles was reported to significantly decrease charge recombination, but its photovoltaic efficiency remains below 4% owing to a small surface area. In this work, we used a one-pot self-assembly process to fabricate flower-like mesoporous TiO2 decorated by NiO oxides, employing a pluronic polymer P123 as a structure directing and pore forming agent. The flower-like porous TiO2-NiO nanoparticles (F-TiO2-NiO NPs), possessing a high BET surface of 130 m(2) g(-1), are first used as a photoanode in DSSCs. These hybrid nanoparticles, decorated with NiO islands, are beneficial for improving photocurrent by increasing dye absorption and suppressing electron-hole recombination. The optimized F-TiO2-NiO NP anode (10 μm thick) achieved a power conversion efficiency of 8.20%, which is 26% and 47% higher than pristine flower-like TiO2 and commercially available P25 anodes, respectively. This efficiency is the highest among the reported TiO2-NiO hybrid anodes.