Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)
Publication date: 1st March 2014
There is currently a large effort in improving device performance in order to meet with the requirement for greener energy generation. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are emerging as one of the most promising low cost photovoltaic technology, addressing “transparence, building integration and high efficient target”. Natural dyes are abundant, cheap in cost, non toxic, biocompatible and totally recyclable, becoming the greenest promising alternative photosensitizer to the artificial dyes prepared in the lab. We here present the photoelectrochemical properties of DSSCs using natural pigments containing anthocyanins, betalains and some chlorophyll derivatives as sensitizers. The dyes extracted from grape, mulberry, blackberry, red Sicilian orange, Sicilian prickly pear, eggplant, radicchio, etc.., have shown a monochromatic incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) ranging from 40 % to 69 %. Natural dyes, extracted from algae, flowers, fruit, leaves and vegetable, can be used as sensitizers in DSSCs. In this contribution we analyze recent progress on the exploitation of natural dyes for energy production, provide a presentation concerning the main limitation of cell performance (i.e. dye stability, electron injection yield) and attempt to propose future research directions.
We gratefully acknowledge PON – Industria 2007-2013: Progetto FotoRiduCO2 (prot. PON01_02257), ENERGETIC (prot. PON02_00355_3391233) and TESEO (prot. PON02_00153_2939517). Furthermore this research was financial supported by “EFOR” Project financed by CNR and by Project “SAGRO” financed by Regione Siciliana (Assessorato Regionale Attività Produttive progetti PO FESR 2007/2013 linea d’intervento 4.1.1.1).
Figure 1. Scheme of a typical bio-photovoltaic cell based on natural pigments containing anthocyanins, betalains and some chlorophyll derivatives as sensitizers.
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