Effective NiCu NPs-doped carbon nanofibers as counter electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells

•CuNi nanoparticles incorporated inside carbon nanofibers are introduced.•The introduced nanofibers showed good electrochemical activity in DSSCs.•The nanofibers were shown a high conversion efficiency of 3.5%.•Due to carbon shelling, the introduced nanofibers are chemically stable.•The nanofibers were prepared by simple and effective technique, electrospinning. Recently, the bimetallic nanostructures reveal good photoelectrochemical catalytic activity. Low chemical resistance is the main constraint preventing wide applications for this new interesting class of nanocatalytic materials. In this study, the active CuNi bimetallic nanoparticles have been incorporated inside carbon nanofibers. Interestingly, the graphite sheath did not affect the catalytic activity of the CuNi NPs as the introduced nanofibers revealed distinct performance as a counter electrode for the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The synthesized nanofibers based DSSC shows a conversion efficiency of 3.5%, open-circuit voltage of 0.70V and a short-circuit current density 7.67mA/cm2. New bimetallic incorporated nanofibers have been prepared by low cost facile electrospinning technique followed by the calcination of electrospun nanofiber mats consisting of nickel acetate, copper acetate, and poly (vinyl alcohol) in argon atmosphere which led to the partial decomposition of the utilized polymer and abnormal decomposition of the metallic acetate to achieve CuNi NPs enveloped in carbon nanofibers Finally, it is worthy mentioned that the development of new materials as catalyst and electrocatalyst in the field of energy would be considered a key objective of modern research.