Designing Multifunctional Co and Fe Co-Doped MoS₂ Nanocube Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, Perovskite Solar Cells, and a Supercapacitor

Abstract

In the present study, three types of specific solid, core-shell, and hollow structured cobalt and iron co-doped MoS₂ nanocubes (denoted as s-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> , c-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> , and h-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> ) are controllably synthesized for the first time by regulating the reactant mass ratios. The prepared Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> nanocubes can function as a counter electrode in dye-sensitized and perovskite solar cells (DSCs and PSCs) and a working electrode in a supercapacitor. In the DSC system, the c-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> nanocubes exhibit the maximum catalytic activity to the Co^3+/2+ redox couple regeneration, and the device achieves a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.69%, significantly higher than the devices using s-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> (6.61%) and h-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> (7.63%) counter electrodes. Similarly, all of the prepared Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> nanocubes show decent activity in PSCs and the device using the c-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> counter electrode achieves the highest PCE of 6.88%. It is worth noting that, as the supercapacitor working electrode, the h-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> exhibits a specific capacitance of 85.4 F g^-1, significantly higher than the parallel values achieved by the s-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> and c-Co-Fe-MoS <i>_x</i> electrodes under identical conditions.