Anthocyanin Development from Fruit Waste for Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

Utilization of two parts of dragon fruit as a sensitizer greatly affects the performance and production costs of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC). Anthocyanin of natural dyes extracted from rind and flesh of dragon fruits are appear as potential candidates for photosensitizers because they are low cost, widely available, enviromental friendly and easy to make. Here, we use titanium dioxide as semiconductor for photoanode, carbon as catalyst for counter electrode, three various of dyes as sensitizer: dyes from dragon fruit grind (D1), dyes from dragon fruit flesh (D2), and D1 & D2 mixture. This DSSC is investigated with various characterizations, namely: optical characterization using UV-Vis spectrophotometer, functional group characterization of dyes using FTIR, electrical characterization using RLC and I-V meter. The outcome shows that dragon fruit flesh achieves cell efficiency of up to 0.48 percent, which is close to the highest anthocyanin values found in literature and the highest dragon fruit anthocyanin values.