Abstract
The exorbitant cost, corrosive nature and rare abundance of Pt as counter electrodes has hampered the availability of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Perovskites, the complex metal oxides that have a diverse variety of oxidation states and high oxygen vacancy concentrations, have sparked a lot of interest in energy storage and conversion, with researchers focusing on alternative ideas for rate-cut counter electrodes to magnify the cost-cutting of DSSCs. Herein, instead of Pt, the three hydrothermally synthesized perovskites LaCe-NiO3, LaNiO3, and CeNiO3 are employed as photocathodes for the fabrication of DSSCs. The electrochemical studies reveal that their electrocatalytic activity towards the iodine/iodide electrolyte is akin to a typical Pt photocathode. The electrons released by the perovskites by oxygen reduction reaction on its surface reduce the I-3(-) to I-, thus the regeneration of the dye to its ground state happens by collecting electrons from the I- ion redox mediator, and finally oxidation of I- to I-3(-) takes place. The LaCeNiO3 shows a higher short circuit current (13.75 mA cm(-2)) with a power conversion efficiency of 3.46%. It has 579 mV of open-circuit voltage with a 0.37 fill factor value. The LaNiO3 shows lower values in comparison with LaCeNiO3 because the A-site cation doping creates lattice deficiencies in LaCeNiO3 making it good for the iodine reduction reaction.