Performance of Natural Dyes in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell as Photosensitizer

In this research work five types of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanocrystalline sol-gel paste with three different types of dye have been prepared and layered on Indium Tin-Oxide coated glass to fabricate dye-sensitized solar cells. The dyes extracted from Malabar spinach seeds (MSS), Red spinach and Pomegranate burgs were used as photosensitizer. All the electrical properties investigated by LCR meter were found to be improved with MSS dye but sample with 0.3 M HNO3 (sample-3) exhibited the best electrical properties. The current-voltage characteristics for all the samples showed ideal behavior. The highest maximum power of 176.3 mu W and efficiency of 9.23% was found for sample-3 with MSS dye. The smallest crystallite size was found to be 28.82 nm for sample-3 by XRD data which was also supported by the SEM results. Thus, this study reveals that MSS dye has the great potential to be used as photosensitizer. [GRAPHICS] .