Effect of pH on Electrochemical, Morphological and Optical Properties of Electrodeposited Molybdenum Sulfide Thin Film

Third-generation dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) provide many benefits over ordinary solar cells. DSSCs efficiently convert visible light into electrical energy and work well in low light environments. Platinum is a common counter electrode due to its electrocatalytic, conductivity, and reflection properties. Due to its drawbacks, alternative counter electrode materials have been explored. The potential counter electrode of DSSC is molybdenum Sulfide (MoS<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>), an inorganic compound of molybdenum and sulphur which has good properties in terms of electrochemical properties and long-term stability. Electrodeposition is one of the deposition techniques used in thin film deposition. Due to several challenges in thin deposition techniques with control over film properties, complexity and cost, electrodeposition is a good alternative due to its cost-effectiveness, simplicity, and deposition control. In this work, we studied the effect of deposition electrolyte condition (acidic, neutral, alkaline) to the electrochemical, morphological, and optical properties of molybdenum sulfide thin film. Overall, the study reveals that MoS<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> films exhibit good hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity at pH 6 and pH 8, with pH 6 showing the highest performance, while also indicating minimal variation in grain size across different pH levels and highlighting the influence of pH on optical and electronic properties.