Abstract
ZnO/natural dyes solar cell (DSSC) had been successfully synthesised. The preparation of ZnO thin films was carried out on an indium thin oxide (ITO) glass substrate using the sol-gel spin coating method. The natural dyes were extracted from tamarillo, red dragon fruit, red spinach, boat lily flower and purple hibiscus flower, each cut into small pieces and put into a beaker glass. The sample was then further crushed with a mortar and then milled until it became soft. The extracted dyes were heated for 5 h and diluted with distilled water to obtain dye solutions. The DSSC structure was formed by glueing together the ZnO/dye and a platinum plat by using Surlyn. The ZnO/dye and platinum were successively used as a working electrode and counter electrode. The Surlyn functioned as glue and conductor. The DSSC structure then put on a hot plate with a temperature of 70°C–80°C to enable Surlyn pasted perfectly. Further, electrolyte liquid was injected into the ZnO/dye-platinum structure. The ZnO thin films were characterised by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and UV-Vis spectrometer. The ZnO/natural dyes thin films were formed by dipping the ZnO thin film into natural dyes solution with the ZnO thin films facing up for 24 h to let the dyes adsorbed by the film. DSSC efficiencies were measured by a simple circuit consisting of DSSC, both analogue and digital multimeters. The results showed that the ZnO crystal structure was of wurtzite hexagonal shape with a crystallite size of 27.3 nm, high-density granules with narrow inter granules boundary, and the band-gap was 3.25 eV. The maximum and minimum values of the sensitisers were from red spinach and red dragon fruit which were 3.30 a.u and 2.50 a.u. The DSSC can convert solar energy to electrical energy with power and efficiency of consecutively of 0.101 W cm–2 and 0.278%.
Highlights
Thin layer solar cell energy conversion recently had gained interest in the development of a thin solar cell due to its cost-effectiveness and relatively simple technology
The choice and the way of processing of the semiconductor as well as the dyes are the main area of research to improve the quality of the dyes solar cell (DSSC) which aims to produce highefficiency DSSC-based solar cell
The diffraction pattern shows that the X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) has the same planes, which are (013), (103) and (112) planes, peaking at (112)
Summary
Thin layer solar cell energy conversion recently had gained interest in the development of a thin solar cell due to its cost-effectiveness and relatively simple technology. One of the thin layer cells is the ZnO/natural dyes solar cell (DSSC) introduced by previous researchers.[1,2] DSSC comprises several components such as oxide semiconductor, dye, counter electrode and electrolyte. The research involves many physical and technological parameters such as the active layers composition, thickness, optical parameters and density of defects.[3] Semiconductor engineering, the dye molecular structure, the electrolyte oxidation-reduction pair and electrode materials are among important aspects that first need to be improved. Journal of Physical Science, Vol 32(1), 59–68, 2021 combination, Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) flowers and pawpaw (Carica papaya) sensitisers.[17,18,19,20] The use of extracted dyes from fruits, leaves and flowers is an important point in improving the DSSC efficiency. In this work, we tried to improve the DSSC efficiency by using tamarillo, red dragon fruit, red spinach, boat lily flower and purple hibiscus flower as sensitisers
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