Multifunctional boron-doped carbon fiber electrodes synthesized by electrospinning for supercapacitors, dye-sensitized solar cells, and photocapacitors

Boron doped carbon fibre (BCf) is synthesized as multifunctional electrode materials for supercapacitors and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) and the photocapacitors fabricated with supercapacitor and DSCs. After optimization of the addition volume of boron source, the specific capacitance of BCf electrode is up to 309.0 F g−1, much higher than the pristine carbon fibre (Cf) electrode (172.8 F g−1). BCf also performs better than Cf as counter electrodes DSCs and the power conversion efficiency of the DSCs using BCf counter electrode reaches 7.51%. The photocapacitor based on BCf shared electrode achieves a total energy conversion and storage efficiency of 1.19%, much higher than the photocapacitor using Cf electrode (0.70%). The enhanced electrochemical abilities of BCf can be attributed to the improved wettability, mass transport and charge transfer properties caused by boron doping.