Highly Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Composited Food Dyes

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-3-2020

Department

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Abstract

As a representative of third-generation solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) possess the advantages of easy fabrication and relatively high power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, the commonly used dyes (such as N719, N3, C217, and Z907) in DSSCs are expensive and toxic. Herein, the nontoxic food dyes, including Amaranth, Sunset Yellow, and Erythrosin B, were explored for DSSC applications. Particularly, this is the first study to combine two of three nontoxic food dyes for DSSCs, leading to a remarkable increase of PCE. Furthermore, a correlation was identified between the PCE and the composition of the combined dyes. The ZnO-based DSSCs with combined Amaranth and Erythrosin B dyes exhibited the highest PCE of 2.64%.

Publisher's Statement

© 2020 American Chemical Society. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.0c00612

Publication Title

Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research

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