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Enhancement in incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of manganese-decorated activated carbon-supported cadmium sulfide nanocomposite

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Abstract

In the current study, cadmium sulfide (CdS), activated carbon (AC)-supported CdS (CdS/AC) and manganese (Mn)-decorated CdS/AC semiconductor materials fabricated by the chemical precipitation method are used as sensitizers and the incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) values of the obtained semiconductor-based solar cell structures are evaluated. The fabricated semiconductor materials, which provide the best IPCE value, are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). SEM images of the Mn-decorated CdS/AC semiconductor material showed that CdS and Mn settled in the mesopores, forming a homogeneous microporous structure on the surface. Based on the XRD, EDX and XPS analysis findings, it is concluded that CdS, CdS/AC and Mn-decorated CdS/AC semiconductor materials are successfully fabricated. The optimum concentration of CdS with a maximum IPCE (%) is found as 10% (for CdS/AC). An extraordinary increase in IPCE (%) of 3% Mn-decorated 10% CdS/AC semiconductor material (from 4.70 to 55.09%) is observed compared to pure CdS. Thus, the ability to increase the photovoltaic efficiency of CdS-based solar cells, which are widely used in photovoltaic applications, with AC support has been clearly demonstrated. The findings of this study indicates that Mn-decorated CdS/AC fabrication is an effective strategy to greatly increase the IPCE (%) and Mn-decorated CdS/AC is a promising nanocomposite to improve solar cell efficiency of semiconductor-based solar cell structures.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Siirt University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit under Project Number 2020-SİÜFEB-019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Siirt University, 56100, Siirt, Turkey

    Ebru Batur, Orhan Baytar & Sinan Kutluay

  2. Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sivas University of Science and Technology, 58100, Sivas, Turkey

    Sabit Horoz

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 34469, Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ömer Şahin

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  1. Ebru Batur
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  4. Ömer Şahin
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Contributions

EB Investigation, visualization, writing— review. OB Investigation, review and editing. SH Conceptualization, investigation, visualization, writing-review and editing. OS Supervision, investigation and review. SK Conceptualization, supervision, investigation, visualization, writing-review and editing.

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Correspondence to Sinan Kutluay.

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Batur, E., Baytar, O., Horoz, S. et al. Enhancement in incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of manganese-decorated activated carbon-supported cadmium sulfide nanocomposite. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 16286–16296 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08521-1

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