A series of carbon nanohorns (CNHs) constituted by the aggregation of about 2000 individual conical graphene tubes (diameters from 2 nm to 5 nm and a length of 40-50 nm) that have been modified with dyes of two, three, or four terthienyl groups has been prepared by adsorbing the corresponding dye on the CNH. Persistent inks in o-dichlorobenzene (o-DCB) of these dye-CNH conjugates were obtained by laser irradiation of o-DCB suspensions of the dye-CNH solids. These inks were used in combination or not with N719 dye for the preparation of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) of TiO₂. It was measured that the terthienyl dye with the largest conjugation deposited on the CNH additively increased the performance of an analogous TiO₂ cell from an efficiency of 4.07% to 6.24%. This result shows the potential of dye-modified CNHs as additives in the construction of more efficient DSSCs.
Keywords: carbon nanohorns; dye-sensitized solar cells; terthienyl dyes; terthienylphenylene vinylene dyes.