Associate Professor of Physics at NC A&T State University and Higher Education Consultant. NC A&T State University. Temple University Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
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Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Using Natural Dye Extracted from Damakase (Ocimum Lamiifolium) and Dambursa (New Plant)
Ashenafi Belete Lejamo1, *, Zekarias Gebreyes Eticha2, Allah Dekama Jarra2
1 Department of Physics, Faculty of Natural and Computational Science, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia 2 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia
Email address:
ashenafibeletescienceh@gmail.com (A. B. Lejamo), hgoldnet@gmail.com (Z. G. Eticha), hawwiallah@yahoo.com (A. D. Jarra) *Corresponding author
Abstract
Dye Sensitized solar cells were made using two locally available plants, Damakase (Ocimum lamiifolium) and Dambursa (New plant) used to extract the natural dye. The pigment was extracted using four solvents, ethanol, methanol, 0.1M hydrochloric acids and distilled water. Then to construct the DSSCs indium tin oxide immersed in the natural dye were used asa counter electrode and Nano crystalline ZnO were act as a working electrode, iodide/tri iodide were placed in between as an electrolyte. The absorption peak and its corresponding wavelength were measured, and then by varying the resistance value, the open circuit current and potential was calculated. Finally from the results the fill factor, performance efficiency and the incident photon conversion efficiency (IPCE) were calculated. At the end the calculated value revealed that, a pigment extracted from Dambursa leaf using solvent ethanol have relatively maximum efficiency and current densities with a value of 0.3675 and 0.264mAcm-2 respectively. Keywords: Natural Dye, Solvents, Electrode, Fill Factor, IPCE
To cite this article:
Ashenafi Belete Lejamo, Zekarias Gebreyes Eticha, Allah Dekama Jarra. Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Using Natural Dye Extracted from Damakase (Ocimum Lamiifolium) and Dambursa (New Plant). Advances in Materials Chemistry. Vol. 1, No. 2, 2017, pp. 55-61. doi: 10.11648/j.amc.20170102.12
Received: May 22, 2017; Accepted: June 5, 2017; Published: August 1, 2017
Introduction
Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has recently penetrated research and development lines of renewable energy, exploited as a promising concept and simple alternative power source [1]. DSSC offers advantages of low fabrication cost, easy preparation methods, and minimal recombination losses as the role of the semiconductor in the DSSC device is merely to conduct the injected majority charge carriers [2] while the minority carriers are carried by the electrolyte. Recently, ZnO, with similar band gap to that of TiO2, appears to be an alternative material for the fabrication of high efficiency DSSCs. A DSSC is composed of a transparent conductive oxide substrate, a wide band gap semiconductor, photosensitizer (dye), a redox electrolyte (usually comprised of iodide/tri-iodide) or p-type
semiconductor and a counter electrode [3-6]. Due to their aforementioned unique properties they have been proposed as alternative photo electrodes in DSSCs in order to achieve better performance [7-8] However, the efficiencies of these cells were found unsatisfactory compared to those of liquid electrolyte. The two main reasons are: the low conductivity of molten salts, organic polymers and polymer electrolytes and bad contact between the dye and ZnO porous film surface and the p-type semi-conductor for solid DSSCs.
1.1. Operational Principle and Structure of DSSC
The dye-sensitized solar cell, DSSC, consist of a photo active working electrode and a counter electrode contacted by a liquid redox electrolyte.
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