Comparison of electrolyte used in the synthesis of natural dye based dye sensitized solar cells

Abstract

As the impact of fossil fuels is evident with the climate changes, world is now fast moving onto realizing renewable energy sources for their regular life where solar energy plays a vital role. In this paper three electrolytes are compared which are used to prepare dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with a polymer polyaniline (PANI). The three electrolytes are used with a photosensitizing agent-a natural dye extracted from spinach with indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrate. A mixture of iodide and triiodide (conventional electrolyte) and polyaniline is explored. The resulting efficiencies of the compared electrolytes were: 0.8076%-conventional electrolyte, 0.617%-polyaniline electrolyte, and 0.5723%-mixture of the two electrolytes.