International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 04 Special Issue: 09 | Sep -2017
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
www.irjet.net
One Day International Seminar on Materials Science & Technology (ISMST 2017) 4th August 2017 Organized by
Department of Physics, Mother Teresa Women’s University, Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu, India
Natural dye from phyllanthus reticulatus fruit as light –harvesting pigments for dye-Sensitized solar cells S.Rajkumar1, K.Suguna2 1Research
Scholar, Department of Physics, Thiruvalluvar Government Arts College, Tamilnadu, India Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Thiruvalluvar Government Arts College, Tamilnadu, India ---------------------------------------------------------------------***--------------------------------------------------------------------2
Abstract - This study reports natural dye extracted from
natural dye obtained from several leaves, fruits and flowers is a better option due to ease of synthesis, economic factors, biodegradability, environment friendliness and availability [11, 12]. Natural dyes are obtained from flowers such as Begonia [13], Hibiscus surattensis [14] and from fruits like Raspberries [15] and Cherries [16] to name a few. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is highly investigated and explored semiconductor for DSSC due to its various properties like appropriate band gap [17], stability over wide pH range under irradiation, nontoxicity and chemical inertness [18]. Enhanced cell performance can be expected on using nano-structured materials that has influence on charge transport and charge separation ability [19]. The shape of the nanostructures plays an important role in determining the efficiency of solar cells.
phyllanthus reticulatus fruit which may be used as low cost sensitizer for wide band gap semi conductors in dye sensitized solar cells. The fruit dye extracted in different solvents to analyze their characteristic absorption spectra. The optical properties of dye sensitized solar cell using natural pigments containing Anthocyanin was investigated in this work. Energy gap was calculated for the dyes extracted in solvents Ethanol, Methanol, Acetone. Calculated energy gap values are 2.85eV, 2.65eV, 3.09eV, 3.05eV, 2.64eV, 2.88eV from UV Visible absorption spectra. Then photoanode was prepared and its UV-Visible absorption characterization was analyzed for the application of dye sensitized solar cell. Key Words: Phyllanthus Reticulatus, Methanol, Acetone, UV-Vis., Energy Gap.
Ethanol,
In this context, this paper aims to carry out a comparative study on the UV-Visible spectra analysis of natural dyes extracted from phyllanthus reticulatus fruit in different solvent medium.
1. INTRODUCTION Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is one of the third generation photo voltaic. The major advantage of these solar cell are their economic viability that comes with simple manufacturing process, and eco-friendliness along with tunable optical properties [1,2]. These third generation solar cells aim to decrease the cost and/or to increase the efficiency [3].In DSSC, photon absorption and exciton transportation is accomplished separately through sensitizer and semiconductor [4] and this is one of the distinguished features against previous generation solar cells. DSSC consists of dye sensitizer to absorb photons, metal oxide semiconductor to transport charge carriers, an electrolyte and counter electrode to regenerate the sensitizer [5]. However, stability of DSSC is the main challenge especially due to the use of liquid electrolyte and quality of sealing [6].Various dyes such as fluorescent dyes, phorphyrins, platinum complex, phthalocyanines [7] are being used as sensitizers. Though Ruthenium based dye is largely used and has demonstrated good efficiency up to approximately 11% [8,9], the demerits include less availability, high cost and toxicity [10]. To overcome this,
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2. EXPERIMENTAL 2.1 Materials The dye was isolated from the fruits of Phyllanthus Reticulates plant collected from Namakkal area, Tamilnadu, India. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2). Fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO-15Ω/cm2) glass plat were from Sigma-Aldrich.
2.2 Preparation of Natural Sensitizer The fruits of Phyllanthus Reticulatus were thoroughly washed using distilled water to remove the adhered dust particles. Seeds were removed and then remaining pieces of fruit specimen is taken in the mortar and pestle crushed. Then the sample was taken in three test tubes and 30ml of each solvent Ethanol Methanol and Acetone was added to the sample. Then the test tubes were
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