Novel Ru(II) Heteroleptic Complexes Anchored to TiO₂ Nanocrystalline: Synthesis, Characterization and Application to Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

A series of heteroleptic ruthenium(II) complexes from Ru(NO)(NO3)3 as precursor have been designed, synthesized, and characterized by 1H-NMR, FT-IR, UV–Vis, PL, ICP and CHN analyses. The reaction details and features were described in detail. Solar cells involving thin films of anatase TiO2 impregnated with these dyes were prepared using an electrolyte solution of I-/I3- in acetonitrile as the electron mediator, and their photovoltaic performance was evaluated. The system lacking carboxyl moiety as anchoring groups shows poor photovoltaic performance. We found that the efficiency of cell is strongly affected by the presence of carboxyl groups of the sensitizing dye, the efficiency of 1,2,4,5-benzentetracarboxylic acid(btec) ruthenium(II) (with three btec moieties) adsorbed on nanocrystalline TiO2 films being 4 times as large as that of bahtophenathrolin ruthenium(II) (with one nitrato group) adsorbed on the same films . An incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 8% at 510 nm was obtained for tris(1,2,4,5-benzentetracarboxylic acid) ruthenium(II) (4)