Dye Sensitized Solar Cells by using Pomegranate Dye as Photosensitizer and Nano electrodes

In this study different types of DSSCs were fabricated using two kinds of titania (TiO2) semiconductors as photo anodes and four kinds of counter electrodes, while the sensitized pomegranate dye (Anthocynin) and the electrolyte (I/I3 ) are the same. TiO2 semiconductors includes; nanosized powder (deposited on ITO glass) and anodized nanotubes(TNTs) template on titanium foil. The counter electrodes include; platinium, electropolymerized polyaniline(PANI), polythiophene (PTh) and polypyrrole(ppy) (also all deposited on ITO glass). The prepared photoanodes and counter electrodes were subjected to surface structure analysis by AFM, SEM,XRD and FTIR. The absorption spectra of natural dye was investigated by UV-Visible spectroscopy which showed absorbed light at 520nm and 310nm. The efficiency of prepared DSSCs were estimated through I-V characterization, the fall factors (ff) and electrical conversion efficiencies (ŋ%) were measured using potentiostat. The efficiencies of all DSSCs follow the order; ITO/Pt – Ti/TNTs > ITO/PANI – ITO/TiO2 > ITO/Pt – ITO/TiO2 > ITO/PTh – Ti/TNTs > ITO/PANI – Ti/TNTs > ITO/PPY – ITO/TiO2 > ITO/PTh – ITO/TiO2 > ITO/PPY – Ti/TNTs. The best efficiencies were achieved using Ti/TNTs and ITO/TiO2 as anode and ITO/Pt and ITO/PANI as cathode they are 2.64% and 0.74% respectively.