Dye-sensitized photosupercapacitor with carbon-based materials as the intermediate electrode
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Abstract
Due to the growing environmental crisis, developing new methods of generating and storing renewable energy is more important than ever. Solar is among the most promising renewable methods; however, it has some critical weaknesses. To addresses these weaknesses, methods of storing energy in the form of batteries and supercapacitors have been evaluated. The overall goal for such devices is to integrate the solar cell and storage device into a single electronic device that can account for power fluctuations, and provide energy when requirements are the highest.
Third generation solar cells are ideal for the potential applications these devices would have. This generation includes dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), perovskite solar cells, organic solar cells, and quantum-dot solar cells. Supercapacitors are a developing technology that are also ideal for the potential applications. Combining third generation solar cells like DSSCs with supercapacitors would result in an inexpensive device capable of converting and storing solar energy in a simple way.
In this thesis, four commercial carbon materials were investigated as electrodes for monolithic DSSC-supercapacitor devices and directly compared for the first time. The objective of this research is to determine if inexpensive carbon-based materials are effective and competitive as electrodes in these devices. The four materials chosen are activated carbon, mesoporous carbon, graphite, and graphene. Of these four materials, graphite had the poorest power conversion efficiency after integration at 1.43%, and graphene had the lowest mass specific capacitance of

