DYE SENSITIZED SOLAR CELL (DSSC) PERFORMANCE WITH DRIED DYE OF EICHHORNIA CRASSIPES LEAVES AS PHOTOSENSITIZER

DSSC is solar based electrical energy with dye organic matter as sensitizer. The organic sensitizer used to be a freshly extracted pigment. This study used organic dye that had previously been prepared in dry form. This dry dye is more practical to be used in DSSC without taking a long time for extraction. The organic dye derived from Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) leaves. The leave’s extract was dried by using a foam mat drying method with the fillers of dextrin (10% w/v) and gum Arabic (10% w/v), and egg white (2% w/v) as a foaming agent. The application of dried dye was arranged in 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% (w/v, ethanol solvent), and a freshly prepared extract was also performed as a control. The results showed that the highest amount (0.63 mg/L) of chlorophyll content was in DSSC with the application of 10% (w/v) dried dye. The best DSSC electrical performance was found in the treatment of 4% dried dye with the electrical characteristics including: Voc: 589 mV, Isc: 0.0408 mA, Vmax: 230 mV, Imax: 0.0347, fill factor: 0.332, Output: 7.98 mW and efficiency: 4.95%.