Development of Graphene Nano-Platelet Ink for High Voltage Flexible Dye Sensitized Solar Cells with Cobalt Complex Electrolytes

Graphene nanoparticles have been subject to intensive investigation as a replacement for platinum as the catalyst in dye sensitized solar cells (DSCs), but few of these investigations examine the application for flexible cells with deposition processes suitable for industrial fabrication. This work introduces a transparent water based graphene ink that can be dried rapidly at less than 110 ºC making it particularly suitable for roll to roll deposition on plastic substrates. This ink has application as a catalyst for dye sensitized solar cells utilizing cobalt complex electrolytes with efficiency of over 6 % and a Voc of 0.89 V at 1 sun demonstrated. A flexible DSC with a printed catalyst and cobalt redox mediator is reported, with efficiency of over 6.0 % and Voc of 0.6 V at 800 lux

Effect of the degree of template removal from mesoporous silicate materials on their adsorption of heavy oil from aqueous solution

The key aim of this study is to evaluate the adsorption of heavy oil from aqueous solutions with different oil contents over mesoporous silicate materials having different surfactant template contents. The mesoporous silicate materials have been synthesized from tetraethylorthosilicate as a silica precursor and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a template using the sol-gel technique. Four samples were prepared by (1) totally removing the template using the calcination process, (2) partially removing the template via ethanol extraction, (3) partially removing the template via water extraction, and (4) keeping the template as synthesized, respectively. These four samples have been characterized using X-ray diffraction, nitrogen adsorption, thermal gravimetric analysis and Fourier transformed infrared. The effect of the degree of template removal of these mesoporous materials for the oil removal has been investigated. The oil removal is inversely proportional to the surfactant content in the mesoporous material, being highest for the calcined sample but lowest for the as-synthesized sample. The kinetic of oil adsorption over the calcined material has been also studied and the data obtained fit well a second-order model