Optimization of Organic Meso-Superstructured Solar Cells for Underwater IoT² Self-Powered Sensors

Abstract

The effectiveness of the mesoporous TiO2 layer, which acts as an active n-type semiconductor layer in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was investigated by varying the AgVO3-doping. To optimize the meso-superstructure, the doping concentration was varied from 0% to 25% using experimentally validated simulations. Moreover, performance comparisons between experimentally fabricated DSSCs based on natural beetroot and the commonly used N719 dye were made. A 15%doping concentration was found optimum for our DSSC, which delivered an output power of 19.24 mW, 6.1% power conversion efficiency, as well as an open circuit voltage, Voc, of 0.5 V and a short circuit current, Isc, of 21 mA/cm 2 in diffused light conditions. Based on these performance results, we integrated our optimized DSSC in an underwater sensing unit as a light harvester.

Transparency against efficiency in uni/bifacial mesostructured-based solar cells for self-powered sensing applications

“…A wide range of energy resources was harvested [22]. These energy resources include but are not limited to thermal energy through using thermoelectric harvesters [23][24][25], kinetic energy that can be harvested using piezoelectric materials [16,[26][27][28][29], and light-harvester through either solar spectrum or artificial lighting [13,[30][31][32].…”

“…Alternatively, light harvesters can also be classified based on the light sources' spectral energy, i.e., Ultra-violet (UV) harvesters [37], visible harvesters [38], infrared (IR) harvesters [39], and broadband light harvesters [40]. By varying the light source, intensity, or spectrum [30,34]. These design parameters are on both the material level and device topology level.…”

“…Another example is in photovoltaic window applications, utilized in smart buildings and self-charged electric vehicles, where the light harvester's transparency shows high priority [33,43]. Moreover, harvesting diffused light is a dominating source in underwater applications [30,32].…”

“…Another attempt was introduced in [47], with the aid of perovskite cells, for RFID seniors. Alternatively, DSSCs have been enrolled for underwater and diffused light-harvesting applications, showing an auspicious performance concerning conventional silicon cells [30,31,43,51,52]. Besides, both PSCs and DSSCs showed potential in forming bifacial cells, contributing to the light-harvesting performance in many applications [52,53].…”

Optical properties of iodine-based electrolyte used in bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells

“…Next generations utilized inorganic/organic junction devices, for example, nanocrystalline, nanoporous, and conducting polymers films (Green 2002). These offer potential in new market share dealing with IoT applications, low light intensity harvesting, diffused light-harvesting, and bifacial solar cells (Hassan et al 2021;Hatem et al 2021). New photovoltaic technology can move entirely from the classical solid-state junction by substituting the contacting interface to the semiconductor by a liquid-based electrolyte, gel, or solid-based electrolyte.…”