scholarly journals Photoactive Layer of DSSCS Based on Natural Dyes: A Study of Experiment and Theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanzuo Li ◽  
Huixing Li ◽  
Peng Song ◽  
Chaofan Sun

Three natural dyes (Forsythia suspensa, Herba Violae, and Corn leaf) have been investigated as potential sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells. UV-vis absorption spectra reveal that three natural dyes mainly contain the compound of pheophytin a. Among three DSSCs, the highest photo electronic conversion efficiencyηis 0.96% with open circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.66 V, short circuit current density (ISC ) of 1.97 mA cm−2, and fill factor (ff) of 0.74. Theoretical time-dependent density functional theory and charge difference density are used to explore the nature of excited states. Results demonstrate that the first state is an intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) state, and electron injection could occur owing to the thermodynamically driving force.


2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zainal Arifin ◽  
Sudjito Soeparman ◽  
Denny Widhiyanuriyawan ◽  
Suyitno Suyitno ◽  
Argatya Tara Setyaji

Natural dyes have attracted much researcher’s attention due to their low-cost production, simple synthesis processes and high natural abundance. However the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based natural dyes have higher tendency to degradation. This article reports on the enhancement of performance and stability of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using natural dyes. The natural dyes were extracted from papaya leaves by ethanol solvent at a temperature of 50 °C. Then the extracted dyes were isolated and modified into Mg-chlorophyll using column chromatography. Mg-chlorophyll was then synthesized into Fe-chlorophyll to improve stability. The natural dyes were characterized using ultraviolet-visible spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry. The performance of DSSCs was tested using a solar simulator. The results showed the open-circuit voltage, the short-circuit current density, and the efficiency of the extracted papaya leaves-based DSSCs to be 325 mV, 0.36 mA/cm2, and 0.07%, respectively. Furthermore, the DSSCs with purified chlorophyll provide high open-circuit voltage of 425 mV and short-circuit current density of 0.45 mA/cm2. The use of Fe-chlorophyll for sensitizing the DSSCs increases the efficiency up to 2.5 times and the stability up to two times. The DSSCs with Fe-chlorophyll dyes provide open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, and efficiency of 500 mV, 0.62 mA/cm2, and 0.16%, respectively. Further studies to improve the current density and stability of natural dye-based DSSCs along with an improvement in the anchor between dyes and semiconducting layers are required.



2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Liu ◽  
Nan Gao ◽  
Dejiang Liu ◽  
Jinglin Liu ◽  
Yuanzuo Li

A series of natural photoactive dyes, named as D1–D6 were successfully extracted from six kinds of plant leaves for solar cells. The photoelectrical properties of dyes were measured via UV-Vis absorption spectra, cyclic voltammetry as well as photovoltaic measurement. To theoretically reveal the experimental phenomena, the chlorophyll was selected as the reference dye, where the ground and excited state properties of chlorophyll were calculated via density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). The experimental results show that the absorption peaks of those dyes are mainly distributed in the visible light regions of 400–420 nm and 650–700 nm, which are consistent with the absorption spectrum of chlorophyll. The photoelectrical conversion efficiencies of the solar cells sensitized by the six kinds of natural dyes are in the order of D1 > D4 > D2 > D5 > D6 > D3. The dye D1 performance exhibits the highest photoelectrical conversion efficiency of 1.08% among the investigated six natural dyes, with an open circuit voltage of 0.58 V, a short-circuit current density of 2.64 mA cm−2 and a fill factor of 0.70.



2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (7) ◽  
pp. 951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perumal Rajakumar ◽  
Kathiresan Visalakshi ◽  
Shanmugam Ganesan ◽  
Pichai Maruthamuthu ◽  
Samuel Austin Suthanthiraraj

Synthesis of polyolefinic aromatic molecules with pyrene as the surface group, and their role as an additive in the redox couple of dye-sensitized solar cells, is described. The studies yield a promising power conversion efficiency of 5.27% with a short circuit current density of 6.50 mA cm–2, an open circuit voltage of 0.60 V, and a fill factor of 0.54 under 40 mW cm–2 simulated air mass (A.M.) 1.5 illumination. Most importantly, the photocurrent responsivity increases with an increase in the number of pyrene units on the surface.



2013 ◽  
Vol 658 ◽  
pp. 25-29
Author(s):  
Rathanawan Magaraphan ◽  
Jaruwan Joothamongkhon

Four natural dyes from sappan wood, noni leaves, safflower and black rice show 4 different colors, red, green, yellow and dark purple. They were extracted by water/ethanol and used as a sensitizer for the ZnO based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). UV-Visible absorption revealed high extinction coefficients of the safflower, noni leaves and sappan wood while the black rice was opposite. And they were adsorbed on ZnO nanoparticles as suggested by the change in absorption spectrum of ZnO. SEM results showed the ZnO nanoparticle-porous film of 9 micron thick. I-V measurement showed both low short circuit current and open circuit voltage leading to poor fill factor. As a result, the efficiencies of the fabricated solar cells were 0.00165, 0.05865, 0.00007 and 0.00015% for sappan wood, noni leaves, safflower and black rice DSSCs, respectively.



Author(s):  
Edwin Peng ◽  
Halil Berberoglu

This paper reports the temperature and irradiance dependence of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with acetonitrile-based electrolytes. The prototyped DSSCs had nanocrystalline titanium dioxide photoanodes and platinum thin film cathode. The photoanodes were sensitized with N-749 dye. The current-voltage characteristics of the DSSCs were measured at temperatures from 5 to 50 °C and under 500, 1000, and 1500 W m−2 irradiance. The open circuit voltage, VOC, decreased linearly with increasing temperature and had positive, logarithmic relation with irradiance. At temperatures lower than 15 °C, short circuit current density, JSC, was limited by the diffusion of I3− in the electrolyte and increased with increasing temperature. At higher temperatures the recombination of electrons injected into the TiO2 conduction band was dominant over diffusion and JSC decreased with increasing temperature. Moreover, JSC increaed linearly with increasing irradiance. The DSSC photoconversion efficiency did not vary appreciably at temperatures lower than 15 °C but decreased with increasing temperature. Finally, the efficiency increased with increasing irradiance.



BIBECHANA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 28-33
Author(s):  
Surendra Bikram Silwal ◽  
Rameshwar Adhikari ◽  
Prakash Lamichhane ◽  
Netra Lal Bhandari

The objective of this research is to employ the natural dyes in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). On account of eco-friendly, renewable, and non-hazardous properties of natural dyes over silicon, a semiconductor, photo-sensitizer in conventional solar cells,  cyclohexane extract of Terminalia alata, a natural dye, was employed as photo-sensitizer. The photoanodes ZnO and 5% Al-doped ZnO for DSSCs were developed by spray pyrolysis. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) has shown hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO with lattice constants a = 3.2487 Å and b = 5.1518 Å having particle size 25.85 nm for ZnO and 33.17 nm for Al-doped ZnO. The DSSC properties such as solar conversion efficiency (η), short-circuit current density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc), and fill factor (FF) were found to be 0.31%, 2.10 mA/cm2, 0.73V, and 45% for ZnO photoanode and 0.37%, 2.25mA/cm2, 0.70 V, and 52.10% for 5% Al-doped photoanode respectively. BIBECHANA 17 (2020) 27-32



2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ru-Yuan Yang ◽  
Huang-Yu Chen ◽  
Fu-Der Lai

We investigated the change of the electric characteristics in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) when the electrolyte has been injected and measured initially and lately for a period of time. It was found that the short-circuit current density decreased from 9.799 mA/cm2to 7.056 mA/cm2and the fill factor increased from 0.406 to 0.559 when the cell had stood for an hour, while the open-circuit photovoltage did not change due to fixed difference between the Fermi level of TiO2and the oxidation-reduction potential of electrolyte. The results can be explained by using the variation of the series resistance in the equivalent circuit of the DSSC.



2014 ◽  
Vol 602-603 ◽  
pp. 888-892
Author(s):  
Yan Xiang Wang ◽  
Yu Hong Ye ◽  
Jian Sun

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotubes film was deposited on conducting glass oxide (FTO) by using ZnO nanorods as template, and the TiO2nanotubes film was applied in DSCs. First, ZnO nanorods were fabricated on ZnO-doped TiO2seed layer coated substrates by the hydrothermal method. Second, the obtained ZnO nanorods were used as a template to synthesize ZnOTiO2coreshell structure through the immersion method. Third, the ZnO nanorods template was removed by etching method to obtained TiO2nanotubes film. The thickness of ZnO-doped TiO2seed layer is about 200nm and the crystalline size of nanoparticles are about 5~10nm. The length of the ZnO nanorods are about 1~3μm. The TiO2nanotube was composed of TiO2nanoparticles. The short-circuit current density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage, fill factor (FF) and efficiency of TiO2nanotubes DSC were 4.63 mA·cm-2, 0.74V, 62% and 2.15%, respectively.



2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 476-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshikazu Suzuki ◽  
Supachai Ngamsinlapasathian ◽  
Ryuhei Yoshida ◽  
Susumu Yoshikawa

AbstractPartially nanowire-structured TiO2 was prepared by a hydrothermal processing followed by calcination in air. The hydrogen titanate powder as-synthesized was calcined at 300 °C for 4 h to obtain the partially nanowire-structured TiO2. A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) with a film thickness of 5.6 μm, fabricated using the partially nanowire-structured TiO2 showed better performance than using a fully nanowire-structured TiO2 or a conventional equi-axed TiO2 nanopowder. The short-circuit current density (JSC), the open-circuit voltage (VOC), the fill factor (FF) and the overall efficiency (η) are 11.9 mA/cm2, 0.754 V, 0.673 and 6.01 %, respectively. The effects of one-dimensional nanostructure and electron expressway concept are discussed.



2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoping Zou ◽  
Zhe Sun

Cadmium sulfide (CdS) quantum dots (QDs) are assembled onto the TiO2films by chemical bath deposition method (CBD). And the QDs size is controlled by the times of CBD cycles. They are characterized by UV-visible absorption. To avoid the photo corrosion and electrolyte corrosion, CdS and N719 are sequentially assembled onto the nanocrystalline TiO2films to prepare a CdS/N719 cosensitized photo electrode for the dye-sensitized solar cells. In the structure of TiO2/CdS/N719 electrode, the reorganization of energy levels between CdS and N719 forms a stepwise structure of band-edge levels which is advantageous to the electron injection and hole recovery of CdS and N719 QDs. The open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current density (Jsc), and efficiency are increased.



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