Use of photosensitive compounds in solar cells for generation of electrical energy

Abstract

This need to ensure that more people can utilize the renewable energy has increased research into effective conversion technologies of the solar energy. This paper focuses on the use of the photosensitive compounds in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) in electrical energy generation. Three types of photosensitive materials that were used to measure the photovoltaic activity on which the experimental research design was adopted are as follows: the non-metallic anthocyanin dyes, organic dye sensitizers and the metal complex ruthenium-based dyes. The fluorine-doped tin oxide glass substrates were applied to produce dye-sensitized solar cells using the application of nanostructured TiO 2 photoanode and iodide/triiodide electrolyte. The photovoltaic features were measured under standard conditions of illumination (AM 1.5, 100mW/cm 2). The parameters were open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, fill factor, power conversion efficiency and others. The result showed that ruthenium based dye had the highest value of light harvesting efficiency of 86 and power conversion efficacy of 8.7 at which organic dye had 6.9 percent efficiency, and lastly, natural dye had a 4.1 percent efficiency. The other feature that reflected that ruthenium dyes were stable enough to retain up to 92 percent of efficacy remained despite being exposed to light (120 hours) was the stability analysis. It offers the worth of the photosensitive materials in improving the efficiency of the solar cells and completes the design of the better-performing dyesensitiveolar technologies.