Zinc oxide-based dye-sensitized solar cells using natural and synthetic sensitizers

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cell is one of the generations of solar cells that generate clean energy and needs inexpensive equipment for fabrication.We report the performances of the natural dye based-solar cells compared with synthetic dye-based solar cells. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is synthesized by the green synthesis technique. The structural property of the ZnO film shows good behavior with preferred (101) orientation. The lattice parameters, a and c, calculated from the X-ray diffraction (XRD) peak of (101) are 2.9214 ​Å and 5.3600 ​Å, respectively. The crystallite size, induced strain and dislocation density of the film are 24.58 ​nm, 4.708×10−3 and 1.655×10−3(nm)−2, respectively. The absorption spectra of the dyes were measured using a UV–Vis spectrophotometer, and the dyes showed high average absorption values of 0.2872, 1.6585, and 0.5886 for beetroot, Eosin y, and yombotumtum, respectively. The current-voltage (I–V) measurement of the cells showed that beetroot, yombotumtum and Eosin y dyes based solar cells have power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 0.75%, 1.17%, and 2.65%, respectively. This shows that the black mineral dye that is easily available, and eco-friendly serves as active material in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).