Fabrication of a dye sensitized solar cell using blackberry dye: Effect of TiCl 4 as blocking layer

Abstract

Energy crisis is one of the most pressing issues of the world. Increasing industries and luxuries have made energy limited compared to the demand for it and the reserve in fossil fuel. An alternative to this crisis is the inorganic and organic solar cell. Organic solar cell having a cost effective prospective is highly demanding. During this research work, a prototype of dye-sensitized solar cell was developed using organic dye from blackberry and TiO2 nanocrystals paste was used as semiconductor. All work was done in the dye-sensitized solar cell lab of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission in joint collaboration with University of Dhaka. The TiO2 and the ITO glasses were imported while the dye was obtained locally. The developed cell was tested for measurement of efficiency in a lab-constructed simulator where the irradiation was provided with a halogen lamp of 20 Watt/220 Volt with intensity of around 900 W/m2 at a distance of 30cm. The characterization of the cell gives I-V characteristics with open circuit voltage of 440 mV, short circuit current of 600μA, fill factor of 45.67 %, and energy efficiency of 0.03 % for raw dye. An improved cell current and cell-voltage was observed when the dye was extracted by soaking in ethanol, for which the characterization of the cell gives I-V characteristics with open circuit voltage of 497mV, short circuit current of 943μA, fill factor of 40.61 %, and energy efficiency of 0.05 %. However it was found with more improved cell efficiency when post treatment was performed on the titanium dioxide layer; the improved cell efficiency being 0.0869%. The solar cell shows degradation in performance with open circuit voltage and short circuit current degrading gradually.