Continuous Preparation of Copper/Carbon Nanotube Composite Films and Application in Solar Cells

Realizing the continuous and large scale preparation of particle/carbon nanotube (CNT) composites with enhanced functionalities, and broad applications in energy conversion, harvesting, and storage systems, remains as a big challenge. Here, we report a scalable strategy to continuously prepare particle/CNT composite films in which particles are confined by CNT films. This is achieved by the continuous condensation and deposition of a cylindrical assembly of CNTs on a paper strip and the in situ incorporation of particles during the layer-by-layer deposition process. A Cu/CNT composite film is prepared as an example; such a film exhibits very high power conversion efficiency when it is used as a counter electrode in a solar cell, compared with previous materials under otherwise identical conditions. The proposed method can be extended to other CNT-based composite films with excellent functionalities for wide applications.