Optical Properties of Lawsone dye doped with Zinc Oxide for the Fabrication of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell

Abstract

Due to their availability of basic ingredients and affordable cost, natural dyes are important in many applications. One of such natural dyes, Lawsone which is naturally extracted from henna leaves. The Zinc Oxide (ZnO) was intermixed with lawsone dye to their matching of energy levels with Titanium dioxide (TiO2) enables efficient charge transfer phenomenon. The optical study illustrates Lawsone dye - Zinc Oxide (Ld-ZnO) composite to utilize in energy conversion application. The FTIR spectra demonstrates the presence of Zn-O, C-O, C=O and hydroxyl groups are evident from near 500, 1633 and around 3250 cm−1 respectively. The UV-Visible spectra reveal maximum absorbance around narrow and broad peak at 368 nm for Lawsone dye (Ld) and Ld-ZnO composite respectively. The lawsone dye has better emission property that causes recombination of charge carriers reduces the performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs). The DSSCs based on lawsone dye (Ld) and Ld-ZnO based material exhibits PCE of 0.12% and 0.17% respectively. This optical study suggests natural extraction of lawsone dye from henna leaves with suitable semi-conducting material was promising candidate to improve performance of DSSCs.