The state-of-the-art cobalt(II/III) tris(bipyridyl) redox shuttles open a chapter for pursuing highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Previous work has demonstrated that light exposure of the Co(III) along with the Lewis base additive, tert-butylpyridine (TBP), effectively improves the solar cell efficiency. With this as a platform, a new Lewis base, i.e., tert-butylpyridine N-oxide (TBP-O), is introduced as an electrolyte co-additive instead of TBP alone. The resulting D3S-sensitized solar cells exhibit an efficiency of 6.6% at full solar illumination, which further increases to 8.1% by exposing the new electrolyte mixture to the light and thus outperforms typical Li+-containing DSSCs. A mechanism with regard to the interactions between Co(III) and Lewis base additives supported by electrochemical and spectroscopic studies is suggested to explain the performance improvement. The study illustrates negative effects of TBP on the charge- and mass-transfer kinetics at the electrode/electrolyte interface and reveals that the effects are eliminated by a light-induced reaction between Co(III) and TBP-O.

Lithium-ion-free tris(2,2 '-bipyridine) Co(ii/iii)-mediated electrolytes have previously been proposed for long-term stable dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Such redox systems also offer an impressive DSSC performance improvement under light soaking exposure, manifested by an increase in photocurrent and fill factor without the expense of decreasing photovoltage. Kinetic studies show that charge transfer and ion diffusion at the electrode/electrolyte interface are improved due to the light exposure. Control experiments reveal that the light effect is unambiguously associated with electrolyte components, [Co(bpy)(3)](3+) and the Lewis-base additive tert-butylpyridine (TBP). Electrochemical and spectroscopic investigation of the [Co(bpy)(3)](3+)/TBP mixtures points out that the presence of TBP, which retards the electrolyte diffusion, however causes an irreversible redox reaction of [Co(bpy)(3)](3+) upon light exposure that improves the overall conductivity. This discovery not only provides a new strategy to mitigate the typical J(sc)-V-oc trade-off in Co(ii/iii)-mediated DSSCs but also highlights the importance of investigating the photochemistry of a photoelectrochemical system.