Abstract
Asphaltenes are remnants of ancient photosynthetic plants and are today considered waste hydrocarbons that must be removed from petroleum for use as fuel and often find their use as road tar. This study reports the first time their use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) in which light is converted to electricity with conversion efficiencies approaching 1.8%. Extracted fractions of asphaltenes from Mexican Altamira crude oil were used as light absorbers in TiO2 based DSSCs. The photovoltaic performances of the cells were analyzed by determining the I-V cell parameters such as OCV (open-circuit voltage), SCC (short-circuit current), FF (fill factor), and SR (series resistance). The overall energy conversion efficiency was also measured to correlate the effect of the different asphaltene portions that created significant improvement of the solar cell parameters. The sensitization of TiO2 electrode with the best asphaltene fraction resulted in a maximum energy conversion efficiency of 1.8% for the solar cell with a maximum photocurrent density of 16.9 mA/cm2. At this level the solar cell created has strong economic potential. A future strategy to further improve performance by minimizing series resistance and improving the photo current and open circuit voltage is also reported. The cells have shown excellent life as suggested by photo-catalytic polymerization of asphaltene materials when exposed to sunlight and air as stated in patent number 8,389,853.
Highlights
Photovoltaic solar cells have shown great promise in capturing solar energy and providing clean and renewable electrical energy that can reduce the world’s dependency on fossil fuels, and reduce emission of CO2
The essence of this research work is well encapsulated by the title of this work, namely, “Asphaltene as light harvesting material in dye sensitized solar cell”
Despite the fact that there were considerable doubts about the suitability of these materials as sanitizer in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) at the start of this work, the research presented in this article has comes a long way in removing many of these reservations
Summary
Photovoltaic solar cells have shown great promise in capturing solar energy and providing clean and renewable electrical energy that can reduce the world’s dependency on fossil fuels, and reduce emission of CO2. The dominant photovoltaic technology is based on solid-state p/n junction devices, in which semiconductor absorbers produce a build-in electrical field separating electron-hole pairs and the electron-hole pairs, generating electricity when illuminated. These types of solar cells have high power conversion efficiency, but suffer from high manufacturing and material cost. The materials of current interest are conjugated molecular species, such as polymers, molecules and dyes, which are capable of absorbing light and conducting charge and thereby acting as organic semiconductors [1]. This article introduces the first real data on using asphaltene fractions as sensitizer in DSSC and describes ways of improvements [13]
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