THE EFFECT ON EXTRACTING SOLVENTS USING NATURAL DYE EXTRACTS FROM HYPHAENE THEBAICA FOR DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS

Abstract

This study covers the fabrication and characterization of dye sensitized solar cell using Hyphaene Thebaica as the natural dye sensitizer for DSSCs. Ethanol and water in separate container was used as the extracting solvent for the natural dyes. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) was deposited on fluorine doped tin oxide(FTO) conductive glass forming a TiO2 thin film, underwent sintering at 400 oC for 40 minutes. The photo electrochemical performance of the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) based on the doum palm pericarp shows open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.37 V and 0.50 V, and short circuit current density (Jsc) of 0.005 mA/cm2 and 0.010 mA/cm2 for ethanol and water extracts respectively. This study further inspected the fill factor as 0.63 and 0.66 for the ethanol and water extract respectively. The conversion efficiency for the ethanol extract was 0.012 % and water extract is up to 0.033 % under light intensity of 1000 m/Wm2 (AM 1.5).