Fabrication of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Using Natural Plant Pigment as Sensitizers.

Dye sensitized Solar cells (DSSCs) have gained widespread attention in recent years owing to their low material costs and ease of production as compared to other economical photovoltaic devices. In the present work, various natural dyes like Henna (Lawsone), Spinach, Teak (TectonaGrandis), Beet and Turmeric were extracted and used as sensitizers in DSSCs. The UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy of the extracted dyes was performed and the energy band gaps were calculated. The DSSCs were fabricated using TiO2 as photoanode and graphene oxide coated indium tin oxide (ITO) as counter electrode. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the fabricated devices were performed under solar irradiation (52 mW/cm2) and open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Jsc), fill factor (FF) and efficiency (η) were noted. The best results were found to be Voc = 223 mV, Jsc = 0.0045 mA/cm2, FF=31% and η=0.63% that corresponds to the dye extracted from beet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]