Fabrication and characterization of dye sensitized solar cell using natural dyes

The study of natural dyes is a growing arena amongst researchers and becoming the most promising development in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The natural dyes are replacing the expensive synthetic dyes by simple extraction process from the flower petals, plant leaves, fruits etc. and pose no threat to the environment. In the present work DSSCs were assembled using mixture of natural dyes extracted from pomegranate, beetroot, lemon leaves and spinach leaves and employed as sensitizer for nano-crystalline TiO2. The best performing cell gave a V-oc of 0.47 V, J(sc) of 0.055 mA/cm(2) and eta of 0.03 %. These being the preliminary results, further exploration should give better output. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.