Characterization of Natural Dye Extracted from Wormwood and Purple Cabbage for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

• Main Authors: Ho Chang, Mu-Jung Kao, Tien-Li Chen, Chih-Hao Chen, Kun-Ching Cho, Xuan-Rong Lai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2013-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Photoenergy
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/159502

This study used natural dyes as sensitizers of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) to replace expensive chemical synthetic dyes. We prepared two natural dyes, chlorophyll dye and anthocyanin dye, by extracting them from wormwood and purple cabbage, respectively. Moreover, we mixed the prepared chlorophyll dye and anthocyanin dye at 5 different volume ratios to form cocktail dyes. For preparation of photoelectrode, P25 TiO2 nanoparticles were used to prepare paste, which was coated on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) conductive glass by the spin coating method at different spin coating speeds in order to form TiO2 thin films with different thicknesses. The DSSC prepared by the cocktail dye achieves photoelectric conversion efficiency (η) of 1.95%, open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.765 V, and short-circuit current density (JSC) of 5.83 mA/cm2. Moreover, the prepared DSSC sensitized solely by chlorophyll extract of wormwood achieved a photoelectric conversion efficiency (η) of 0.9%, whereas the DSSC sensitized solely by anthocyanin extract of purple cabbage achieved a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 1.47%, achieving the longest lifetime of electrons amongst these three dyes.