The porous carbon with a high surface area is prepared from rice husk through pyrolysis and chemical activation and explored as the counter electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells. Structure and texture analysis reveals that the as-prepared porous carbon has a hierarchical porous structure containing large-size mesopores and abundant micropores. Electrochemical studies indicate that the obtained hierarchical porous carbon electrode has high electrocatalytic activity for I-/I-3(-) redox reaction and enhanced electrolyte diffusion capability. These enhanced electrochemical properties are beneficial for improving the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells. Under irradiation of 100 mW cm(-2), the dyesensitized solar cell with this porous carbon counter electrode shows a conversion efficiency of 6.32%, which is closed to that of the cell with Pt electrode (6.69%). These promising results highlight the potential application of hierarchical porous carbon derived from rice husk in more cost-effective dyesensitized solar cells. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.