Abstract:
Significant financial and environmental challenges are associated with using platinum electrodes as counter
electrodes (CEs) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). This work uses rice husk, an agricultural waste, to create
active carbon that is appropriate for DSC CEs in response to these difficulties. A simple spray pyrolysis technique
created activated carbon obtained from rice husks. The DSC employing activated rice husk carbon as the CE
demonstrated a conversion efficiency of 6.06%, slightly lower than the 8.21% efficiency achieved with a platinum
electrode-based cell. However, this performance gap is overshadowed by the substantial cost reduction
enabled by the utilization of low-cost activated carbon compared to noble metal alternatives. This result introduces
promising avenues for investigating the use of agriculturally derived carbon materials as workable and
affordable options for platinum CEs in DSCs, thereby contributing to the sustainable advancement of photovoltaic
systems. Even though the performance of DSC that uses activated carbon derived from rice husk in CE is
slightly lower than its counterparts based on platinum, the cost reduction due to the use of low-cost activated
carbon with noble metal is significant.
