Ruthenium N719 Research Articles

Enhancement of Power Conversion Efficiency with Zinc Oxide as Photoanode and Cyanococcus, Punica granatum L., and Vitis vinifera as Natural Fruit Dyes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Ruthenium N719 is a well-known material used as the dye in commercial dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) devices. However, it poses risks to human health and the environment over time. On the other hand, titanium dioxide (TiO2) has low electron mobility and high recombination losses when used as a photoanode in this photovoltaic technology device. In addition, using Ruthenium as the dye material harms the environment and human health. As an alternative sensitizer to compensate Ruthenium on two different photoanodes (TiO2 and ZnO), we constructed DSSC devices in this study using three different natural dyes (blueberry, pomegranate, and black grape). In good agreement with the anthocyanin content in the fruits, black grape, with the highest anthocyanin content (450.3 mg/L) compared to other fruit dyes (blueberry—386.6 mg/L and pomegranate—450.3 mg/L), resulted in the highest energy conversion efficiency (3.63%) for the natural dye-based DSSC. Furthermore, this research proved that the electrical performance of natural dye sensitizer in DSSC applications with a ZnO photoanode is better than using hazardous Ru N719 dye with a TiO2 photoanode owing to the advantage of high electron mobility in ZnO.

Natural dye extraction from Syzygium Cumini and its potential photovoltaic application as economical sensitizer

Solar energy being a vital source of energy for the future generations, it is necessary to make solar cells cost effective. The quest for cost effective and environmental friendly energy source has led to the development of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). In the present work we have explored the extraction and optical and electrochemical properties of Syzygium Cumini or commonly known as Jamun. The dye has been successfully used over mesoporous titania (TiO2) as sensitizer in DSSC with polymer electrolyte. The efficiency improved when an additional layer of reduced graphene oxide was embedded prior to TiO2. Overall the photovoltaic parameters suggest that the dye characteristics could be improved to give better efficiency. Furthermore, compared to the cost of the standard Ruthenium N719 dye, the cost of Jamun dye is inexpensive making it a highly economical dye for DSSC.

Photovoltaic Performance of Co-doped CuCrO2 for p-type Dye-sensitized Solar Cells Application

For the first time, Co-doped CuCrO2+δ non-stoichiometric nanocrystals with δ≈0.1 aresynthesized bylow-temperature hydrothermal method. The synthesis mechanism proposed and the structural characterizations have confirmed that the excess oxygen from delafossite structure is given by the specific hydrothermal conditions (temperature, pressure and molarity of basic solution). The decreasing of the observed electrical resistivity in the non-stoichiometric nanocrystals is enhanced by Co-subtitution. Thus, hydrothermal synthesis has allowed to obtain doped delafossite nanocrystalline compound with excess oxygen and mixed valancies of both sites (A and B sites) and could open the study of its cumulative effect on physical properties. The performance of p-type DSSCs based on Co-doped CuCrO2+δnanocrystals photocathodeswas made using two type of dye: Coumarin C343 and Ruthenium N719. The short-circuit density (Jsc) is notably increased by approximately 60% when N719 is used as dye.

Magnetic field effects in dye-sensitized solar cells controlled by different cell architecture.

The charge recombination and exciton dissociation are generally recognized as the basic electronic processes limiting the efficiency of photovoltaic devices. In this work, we propose a detailed mechanism of photocurrent generation in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) examined by magnetic field effect (MFE) technique. Here we demonstrate that the magnitude of the MFE on photocurrent in DSSCs can be controlled by the radius and spin coherence time of electron-hole (e-h) pairs which are experimentally modified by the photoanode morphology (TiO2 nanoparticles or nanotubes) and the electronic orbital structure of various dye molecules (ruthenium N719, dinuclear ruthenium B1 and fully organic squaraine SQ2 dyes). The observed MFE is attributed to magnetic-field-induced spin-mixing of (e-h) pairs according to the Δg mechanism.

Surface destruction and performance reduction of the ZnO nanowire arrays electrode in dye sensitization process

ZnO based dye-sensitized solar cells have been widely investigated. The limitation of the conversion efficiency is studied in this work. Obvious morphology changes of the ZnO nanowire electrode occur after a period of time sensitized in the ruthenium N719 dye ethanol solution. The surface dissolution of the ZnO nanowires and the formation of Zn 2+/dye aggregates have been discovered and characterized. The influence of the sensitization duration on the cell performance is investigated and discussed. The short circuit current density and overall conversion efficiencies of the cells decrease extremely when the sensitization time is prolonged. The results exhibit that ruthenium N719 dye is not suitable enough to the ZnO nanowire arrays electrode.