Exploring Voltage Output Using a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

Abstract

A dye-sensitized solar cell consisting of two conducting glass electrodes in a sandwich arrangement was developed in the laboratory. Both electrodes were coated with tin dioxide after which the non conductive electrode was again coated with titanium dioxide. The titanium dioxide is designed to serve as an absorbent for the dye. The technology adopted in this paper is that the dye molecules absorb light, and produce excited electrons which in turn generate current in the output terminals of the cell. The dye regains its lost electron with the aid of the iodide electrolyte present in the cell. This work was done using the following light sources: fluorescent and overhead projector light. The voltages measured from each light source were separately documented. This paper shows that the solar cell exposed to the overhead projector light produced a voltage of between 1.3v and 1.5v while the voltage produced from the solar cell exposed to the fluorescent light was rather low. Cells made from raspberries, blackberries, spinach leaves, and grape fruit dyes were independently experimented on, and results showed that only cells made from the berries yielded reasonable quantity of electrons. This is because they have the right chemical composition and the energy band required to bond with the titanium dioxide which enables the release of electrons when light falls on them. The dye sensitized solar cell is very attractive because the materials needed are not only available but also cheap. In this laboratory work, efficiency evaluation yielded about 14.3% for the blackberry dye-sensitized solar cell.