Structurally Simple and Easily Accessible Perylenes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Applicable to Both 1 Sun and Dim-Light Environments

Abstract

The need for low-cost and highly efficient dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells under both the sunlight and dim light environments is growing. We have devised GJ-series push-pull organic dyes which require only four synthesis steps. These dyes feature a linear molecular structure of donor-perylene-ethynylene-arylcarboxylic acid, where donor represents N,N-diarylamino group and arylcarboxylic groups represent benzoic, thienocarboxylic, 2-cyano-3-phenylacrylic, 2-cyano-3-thienoacrylic, and 4-benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazol-4-yl-benzoic groups. In this study, we demonstrated that a dye without tedious and time-consuming synthesis efforts can perform efficiently. Under the illumination of AM1.5G simulated sunlight, the benzothiadiazole-benzoic-containing GJ-BP dye shows the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.16% with V of 0.70 V and J of 11.88 mA cm using liquid iodide-based electrolyte. It also shows high performance in converting light of 6000 lx light intensity, that is, incident power of ca. 1.75 mW cm, to power output of 0.28 mW cm which equals a PCE of 15.79%. Interestingly, the benzoic-containing dye GJ-P with a simple molecular structure has comparable performance in generating power output of 0.26 mW cm (PCE of 15.01%) under the same condition and is potentially viable toward future application.

Challenges and prospects of ambient hybrid solar cell applications

“…Yeh and coworkers developed a series of dyes based on a substituted perylene light absorbing unit with different anchoring groups, all with absorption maxima about 550 nm. 49 Two of their dyes, GJ-P and GJ-BP, obtained similar results under T5 CF and LED lamps, with power outputs varying between 9 mW cm À2 at 300 lx and 276 mW cm À2 at 6000 lx. Chen et al presented a series of different dyes, all with D-p-A structure, especially designed for indoor applications, together with some discussion on general structural design strategies for indoor dyes.…”

Structural Engineering on Pt-Free Electrocatalysts for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Therefore, DSSCs are very competitive to the first and second generations of solar cells due to numerous advantages including easy fabrication, low cost (Figure 1) [3], and high performance at dim-light condition. Moreover, DSSCs can be used in indoor ambient applications [5][6][7][8][9].…”

Novel Architecture of Indoor Bifacial Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells with Efficiencies Surpassing 25% and Efficiency Ratios Exceeding 95%

“…Presently, efficiencies over 25% have been achieved using the I − /I 3 − redox system. [14][15][16][17][18][19] In recent years, many studies have paid attention to employing the copper and cobalt redox-couple for the purpose of increasing cell efficiency. [20][21][22][23][24][25] Two typical studies were reported by the groups of Gratzel and Freitag, respectively, in 2018 and 2020.…”