AN ANALYSIS OF THE DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS FABRICATED WITH THE DYES EXTRACTED FROM THE LEAVES AND FLOWERS OF AMARANTHUS CRUENTUS

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were devised with the sensitizers prepared from the leaves and flowers of Amaranthus cruentus. Fresh and dried leaves were employed for extracting the dye sensitizers. Acetone, ethanol, and deionized water were used as solvents for the extraction process. A sum of nine dyes was prepared. For all the extracted dyes, spectroscopic studies (UV–visible & FTIR) were performed to ensure that the dyes are suitable to be used as sensitizers for DSSC. XRD and SEM were recorded for the TiO2 paste used. Nine DSSCs were fabricated with the extracted dyes as sensitizers, TiO2 as semiconductor oxide, I−/I3− as electrolyte, and graphene-coated FTO as counter electrode. J-V characterization study was done for each cell showed that the cell with dye taken from the fresh leaves using acetone exhibited the highest efficiency of 0.816%. It was noted that these cells recorded higher efficiency than the previously reported works with dyes taken from Amaranthus red