Characteristic and Performance Study of of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) Using Natural Dye of Red Dragon Fruit Extract
Shofy Zahrotul Aghniya (a*), Setiya Rahayu (a**), Priastuti Wulandari (a***)

a) Physics of Magnetism and Photonic Research Division, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Jalan Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
*shofy_zahrotul_aghniya[at]students.itb.ac.id
**setiya.rahayu[at]students.itb.ac.id
***pwulandari[at]itb.ac.id

Abstract

Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) is a third generation solar cell that uses dye as a sensitizer to absorb the light when it irradiate the device. The most widely used dyes are Ruthenium-based dyes, such as N-719, N-3, Z-907 with the resulting device performance efficiency above 10%. In recent years, many researchers have begun to study dyes using natural materials such as fruits and vegetables to replace the Ruthenium dye due to the difficulty in material manufacturing process and the high material cost. One of the natural dyes that has been widely studied is red dragon fruit or Selenicereus Undatus. From previous studies, it was found that red dragon fruit extract has absorbance area that is almost similar to dye N-719 even the performance of red dragon fruit-based DSSC devices is still being investigated. For this reason, a simple study was carried out regarding the optical and chemical characteristics of red dragon fruit dye and optimizing the use of natural red dragon fruit dye in the DSSC device. The research method consist of experimental preparation of red dragon fruit extract dye solution and DSSC fabrication.

The results of UV-Vis characterization show that the absorbance area of the red dragon fruit dye solution is in the visible light region (400 nm to 600 nm) which is expected to absorb more visible wavelength range. From the results of the Taut Plot calculation by used of absorbance spectrum data, it is found that the energy band for red dragon fruit is 1.9 eV. Meanwhile, the results of FTIR characterization in dragon fruit dye is found the presence of anthocyanin and betalain pigments which are relate to light absorption and its chemical interactions with the TiO2 layer in the DSSC structure. In our study, the performance of dragon fruit extract dye-based DSSC devices have shown the J-V solar cell profile even the efficiency is still lower in comparison to Ruthenium dye-based DSSC.

Keywords: Dye Sensitized Solar Cell- red dragon fruit- Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy- UV-Vis spectroscopy- J-V measurement

Topic: CHEMISTRY AND MATERIAL SCIENCES