Third-generation solar cells, including dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs), have been associated with low-cost material requirements, simple fabrication processes, and mechanical robustness. Hence, counter electrodes (CEs) are a critical component for the functionality of these solar cells. Although platinum (Pt)-based CEs have been dominant in CE fabrication, they are costly and have limited market availability. Therefore, it is important to find alternative materials to overcome these issues. Transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs) and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have demonstrated capabilities as a more cost-effective alternative to Pt materials. This advantage has been attributed to their strong electrocatalytic activity, excellent thermal stability, tunability of bandgap energies, and variable crystalline morphologies. In this study, a comprehensive review of the major components and working principles of the DSSC and QDSSC are presented. In developing CEs for DSSCs and QDSSCs, various TMS materials synthesized through several techniques are thoroughly reviewed. The performance efficiencies of DSSCs and QDSSCs resulting from TMS-based CEs are subjected to in-depth comparative analysis with Pt-based CEs. Thus, the power conversion efficiency (PCE), fill factor (FF), short circuit current density (J_sc) and open circuit voltage (V_oc) are investigated. Based on this review, the PCEs for DSSCs and QDSSCs are found to range from 5.37 to 9.80% (I⁻/I₃⁻ redox couple electrolyte) and 1.62 to 6.70% (S⁻²/S_x⁻ electrolyte). This review seeks to navigate the future direction of TMS-based CEs towards the performance efficiency improvement of DSSCs and QDSSCs in the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner.

Among many applications, elevated-temperature cured epoxy resins are widely used for high-performance applications especially for structural adhesive and as a matrix for structural composites. This is due to their superior chemical and mechanical properties. The thermosetting nature of epoxy produces a highly cross-linked polymer network during the curing process where the resulting material exhibited excellent properties. However, due to this cross-linked molecular structure, epoxies are also known to be brittle, and once a crack initiated in the material, it is difficult to arrest the crack propagation. Earlier research found that the inclusion of encapsulated healing agents is able to introduce self-healing ability to the room-temperature cured epoxies. The current study investigated the self-healing behaviour of an elevated-temperature cured epoxy, which incorporated the dual-capsule system loaded with diglycidyl-ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) resin and mercaptan. The microcapsules were prepared by the in-situ polymerisation method while the fracture toughness and the self-healing capability of the tapered-double-cantilever-beam (TDCB) epoxy specimens were measured under Mode-I fracture toughness testing. We investigated the effect of temperature on viscosity of the healing agents and how these values influence the formation of uniform healing on the fracture surfaces. It was found that incorporation of the dual-capsule self-healing system onto an elevated-temperature cured epoxy slightly changed the fracture toughness of the epoxy as indicated by the Mode-I testing. In the case of thermal healing at 70°C, the self-healing epoxy exhibited a recovery of up to 111% of its original fracture toughness, where a uniform spreading of the healant was observed. The excellent healing behaviour is attributed to the lower viscosity of the healant at higher temperature and the higher glass transition temperature ( T_g) of the produced healant film. The DSC analysis confirmed that the healing process was not contributed by the post-curing of the host epoxy.

Since the use of the most stable Pb-based materials in the electronic industry has been banned due to human health concerns, numerous research studies have focused on Pb-free materials such as pure tin and its alloys for electronic applications. Pure tin, however, suffers from tin whiskers’ formation, which tends to endanger the efficiency of electronic circuits, and even worse, may cause short circuits to the electronic components. This research aims to investigate the effects of stress on tin whiskers’ formation and growth and the mitigation method for the immersion of the tin surface’s finish deposited on a copper substrate. The coated surface was subjected to external stress by micro-hardness indenters with a 2N load in order to simulate external stress applied to the coating layer, prior to storage in the humidity chamber with environmental conditions of 30 °C/60% RH up to 52 weeks. A nickel underlayer was deposited between the tin surface finish and copper substrate to mitigate the formation and growth of tin whiskers. FESEM was used to observe the whiskers and EDX was used for measuring the chemical composition of the surface finish, tin whiskers, and oxides formed after a certain period of storage. An image analyzer was used to measure the whiskers’ length using the JEDEC Standard (JESD22-A121A). The results showed that the tin whiskers increased directly proportional to the storage time, and they formed and grew longer on the thicker tin coating (2.3 μm) than the thin coating (1.5 μm). This is due to greater internal stress being generated by the thicker intermetallic compounds identified as the Cu₅Sn₆ phase, formed on a thicker tin coating. In addition, the formation and growth of CuO flowers on the 1.5 μm-thick tin coating suppressed the growth of tin whiskers. However, the addition of external stress by an indentation on the tin coating surface showed that the tin whiskers’ growth discontinued after week 4 in the indented area. Instead, the whiskers that formed were greater and longer at a distance farther from the indented area due to Sn atom migration from a high stress concentration to a lower stress concentration. Nonetheless, the length of the whisker for the indented surface was shorter than the non-indented surface because the whiskers’ growth was suppressed by the formation of CuO flowers. On the other hand, a nickel underlayer successfully mitigated the formation of tin whiskers upon the immersion of a tin surface finish.

The aim of this work is to develop a self-healing polymeric adhesive formulation with epoxy/mercaptan microcapsules. Epoxy/mercaptan microcapsules were dispersed into a commercialize two-part epoxy adhesive for developing self-healing epoxy adhesive. The influence of different content of microcapsules on the shear strength and healing capability of epoxy adhesive were investigated using single-lap-joints with average thickness of adhesive layer of about 180 µm. This self-healing adhesive was used in bonding of 5000 series aluminum alloys adherents after mechanical and alkaline cleaning surface treatment. The adhesion strength was measured and presented as function of microcapsules loading. The results indicated that the virgin lap shear strength was increased by about 26% with addition of 3 wt% of self-healing microcapsules. 12% to 28% recovery of the shear strength is achieved after self-healing depending on the microcapsules content. Scanning electron microscopy was used to study fracture surface of the joints. The self-healing adhesives exhibit recovery of both cohesion and adhesion properties with room temperature healing.