Scanning electron microscopy of soxhlet extracted aloe vera gel for electrolyte application

Abstract

Organic materials such as aloe vera gel are now being used in a wide range of solar cells application because of their properties, environmental safety and low cost. The characterizations of the aloe vera gel are discussed in this paper to determine the preferable characteristics of aloe vera gel which make it suitable to acts as gel electrolyte in DSSCs. The study was started by selecting the best aloe vera gel properties between younger and older aloe vera gel through the refractive index and viscosity analysis. Surprisingly, older aloe vera gel has suitable characteristics which is lower refractive index and consists higher value of viscosity, which needed in electrolyte application for DSSCs when being extracted by using soxhlet extraction methods. The extraction process was carried out in a series of solvents which is hexane and the mixture of hexane and ethanol at specific ratio. The functional group of the unfiltered and filtered aloe vera gel were determined by the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) while the surface morphology and spatial distribution elements of the samples were examined by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX).