Studies on the Enhancement of Photovoltaic Properties of Natural Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Photovoltaics are a precious technology in the hasty world where energy prices are goes on increasing within seconds. Natural dye sensitized solar cells are a promising class of photovoltaic cells with the capacity of generating green energy at low production cost since no expensive equipment is required in their fabrication. Researchers are focusing to facilitate for producing eco-friendly, low cost and more efficient dye sensitized solar cells. Application of natural dyes on solar cell, which results in the fabrication of a Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) in a large scale, is safe, secure and ecofriendly. Our main objective is to apply molecular engineering on the natural dyes which is giving a better performance in the dye sensitized solar cell and the result will be hopeful for the commercialization of natural based solar cell product. This is done by synthesizing suitable metal complexes of the selected dyes. The present work focuses on the synthesis, fabrication, characterization, and study the improved performance of DSSCs based on natural dyes as sensitizers. In this scenario, the possibility of natural sensitizers based DSSC is made possible via optimizations of key components, counter electrodes, electrolyte, photoanode and sensitizers. Also attempts are there to modify the working electrode of titanium nano crystals to nano fibres and coating suitable layer over it for increasing the surface area of the photo electrode for harvesting more photons. The main objective of the present work is to synthesize, fabricate, characterize, and study the improved performance of DSSCs based on natural dyes as sensitizers, especially on quinones. Important physical parameters governing the efficiency of the DSSCs can be determined from the current-voltage characteristics of the fabricated devices using the synthesized sensitizers. newline