Improving the efficiency of cadmium sulfide-sensitized titanium dioxide/indium tin oxide glass photoelectrodes using silver sulfide as an energy barrier layer and a light absorber

Recent advances in metal sulfides: from controlled fabrication to electrocatalytic, photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical water splitting and beyond

This review describes an in-depth overview and knowledge on the variety of synthetic strategies for forming metal sulfides and their potential use to achieve effective hydrogen generation and beyond.

Influence of CdS Morphology on the Efficiency of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Cadmium sulfide (CdS) used in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is currently mainly synthesized by chemical bath deposition, vacuum evaporation, spray deposition, chemical vapor deposition, electrochemical deposition, sol-gel, solvothermal, radio frequency sputtering, and hydrothermal process. In this paper, CdS was synthesized by hydrothermal process and used with a mixture of titanium dioxide anatase and rutile (TiO2(A+R)) to build the photoanode, whereas the counter electrode was made of nanocomposites of conductive polymer polyaniline (PANI) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) deposited on a fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate. Two morphologies of CdS have been obtained by using hydrothermal process: branched nanorods (CdSBR) and straight nanorods (CdSNR). The present work indicates that controlling the morphology of CdS is crucial to enhance the efficiency of DSSCs device. Indeed, the higher power conversion energy of 1.71% was achieved for a cell CdSBR-TiO2(A+R)/PANI-MWCNTs under 100 mW/cm2, whereas the power conversion energy of 0.97 and 0.83% for CdSNR-TiO2(A+R)/PANI-MWCNTs and TiO2(A+R)/PANI-MWCNTs, respectively. Therefore, by increasing the surface to volume ratio of CdS nanostructures and the crystallite size into those structures opens the way to low-cost chemical production of solar cells.

Fabrication of Ag2S/CdS Heterostructured Nanosheets via Self-Limited Cation Exchange

Highly crystalline vertically aligned Ag2S/CdS heterostructured nanosheets with lateral sizes of several micrometers and thicknesses of a few nanometers are prepared directly on silver surfaces by a two-step process. Firstly, Ag2S sheets were prepared by direct reaction of partially dissolved elementary sulfur in methanol with a solid silver surface in methanol at room temperature. The second step involves a self-limited cation exchange of Ag+ vs. Cd2+ to achieve the formation of large-area Ag2S/CdS heteronanosheets on the solid substrate. The cation exchange was proven and investigated over time via several analytical methods, e.g. X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and three-dimensional photoluminescence mapping.