A frontier Zn- and N-rich complex grafted onto reduced graphene oxide for the electrocatalysis of dye-sensitized solar cells.

h This paper proposes a novel mu-hydroxo-bridged dinuclear macrocyclic zinc complex, {[Zn(C10H20N8)](2)(OH)}(BF4)(3). The structure was determined by X-ray crystallography: Monoclinic,C2/c,a= 25.4632(6),b= 10.9818(3),c= 15.7522(4) angstrom,Z= 8,R-1= 0.0233, wR(2)= 0.0557, based on reflectionsI> 2 sigma(I). The complex was successfully reacted with graphene oxide to form a mu-hydroxo-bridged dinuclear macrocyclic Zn complex/reduced graphene oxide composite. To evenly disperse the Zn- and N-rich complex onto the surface of the reduced graphene oxide, and to enhance the electrocatalytic property of the graphene composites, a soluble molecular grafting method was used here. The graphene-based composites were applied as the counter electrodes (CEs) of dye-sensitized solar cells. Current density-voltage measurements revealed that the conversion efficiency of the GO/Zn (1 : 10) sample was 7.78%, which was better than that of Pt CE (7.49%). GO/Zn (1 : 10) CE exhibited the lowest impedance (R-CE= 9.90 omega), which was better than that of Pt CE (R-CE= 66.1 omega), showing that GO/Zn CEs can reduce the impedance at the CE/electrolyte interface. The proposed method is simple, and the composite materials can potentially replace conventional Pt, optimizing efficiency and reducing production cost.