Novel organic dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells based on 1-(2-ethylhexyl) pyrrole as a π-bridge

Three novel organic dyes coded as FWD9, FWD10 and FHD7 with different donors were reported in this work. Their molecular structures were fully characterized and photophysical/electrochemical properties as well as performances as sensitizers for DSSCs were scrutinized in detail. By the adoption of 1-(2-ethylhexyl)pyrrole moiety, dye aggregation was efficiently suppressed and better power conversion efficiencies were observed for all the three dyes compared with the addition of coadsorbent chenodeoxycholic acid. FWD9 with bis(4-styryl) phenyl amino donor exhibited the best power conversion efficiency to be 5.80% among the three dyes, while the J(sc) to be 13.95 mA cm(-2), V-oc to be 0.66 V and FF to be 0.63, and it was unnecessary to add adsorbent to suppress the dye aggregation.