Fabrication and Characterisation of Titanium Dioxide Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cell using Flame of the Forest Dye

Abstract

A Titanium dioxide (TiO 2) based Die Sensitised Solar Cell (DSSC) using Flame of the Forest (Butea monosperma) was fabricated on a glass substrate and characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The cell had TiO 2 as a photo electrode, flame of forest as a dye sensitizer, iodide/iodide solution as an electrolyte and Platinum/Transparent Conducting Oxide as a counter electrode. The photo electrochemical characteristics of TiO DSSCs were tested under simulated sunlight AM 1.5 from a solar simulator with the radiant power of 100mW/cm 2 . It was found that the DSSC based on TiO 2 generated photocurrent with short-circuit current, I sc = 0.14mA; open-circuit voltage, V oc = 0.5; fill factor, ff = 0.652 and a photo conversion efficiency of 0.08%. This is comparatively good when evaluated with similar low-cost DSSCs. The Isc was found to increase with increasing thickness of the TiO 2 photo electrode, while the V oc of TiO 2 DSSC was found to be independent of the morphology and dye adsorption surface area of TiO 2 .