Fabrication of Organic Dye Sensitized Solar Cell

Abstract

Renewable energy is rapidly gaining importance as an energy resource to help aid the national energy depletion crisis of fossil fuel and coal. One of the most potential renewable energy sources in Malaysia is hydropower followed by solar energy. This paper presents the fabrication of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) using organic dyes from dragon fruit and chlorophyll which is extracted from spinach. The fabrication of DSSC uses the Dr.blade method. Result shows that the efficiency by using dragon fruit as sensitizer at 40µm TiO2 Thickness is 6.45%, better than the usage of chlorophyll dye which is 4.23% at the same thickness. Result also shows that at 80µm by using the dyes from chlorophyll extract has higher solar cell efficiency compare to dragon fruit. This shows that both the chlorophyll extract and dragon fruit shows potential in the development of a feasible working organic dye.

The Correlation between Dye absorption Wavelength and Illumination Wavelength on DSSC Performance

“…One method of enhancing DSSC efficiency is by lowering the energy gap of the dye, thus resulting in a greater amount of sunlight absorption. Therefore, many researchers have attempted to accomplish this in numerous ways, such as by extracting chlorophyll from diverse plants in various methods [2,3,4,5] and using anthocyanins as dyes [6,7,8]. In addition, several studies have used various methods, such as mixing between anthocyanins and chlorophyll [9,10], adding silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) both before TiO2 is coated onto a conducting glass substrate (FTO/AgNPs/TiO2) and after (FTO/TiO2/AgNPs) and also mixed into TiO2 in making photoanode electrodes [11,12], and mixing chlorophyll extract with nanoparticles [13].…”

Performance Evaluation of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell for Varying TiO₂ Thicknesses

“…Preparing the Substrate for Deposition. The simplest and most widely used method for depositing titania paste on a substrate is the so-called doctor-blade method [5] [11]. With this technique, the thickness of the titania layer is determined by the thickness of a spacer placed on both sides.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of Natural Sensitizers for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

“…On the other hand natural dye is easy to obtain and the cost is very low [6]. Green plants are mostly rich in chlorophyll and red leaves are rich in anthocyanine [7] and the application of this kind of natural dye has been frequently investigated in many related studies [3,8,9].…”