Effects of dye-adsorption solvents, acidification and dye combination on efficiency of DSSCs sensitized by α-mangostin and anthocyanin from mangosteen pericarp

摘要

Abstract α-Mangostin and anthocyanin extracted from mangosteen pericarp were used as photosensitizers in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The DSSCs performance has been optimized in terms of dye-adsorption solvents, dye combination and acidification. The photoelectrochemical and spectroscopic studies supplemented with quantum-chemical modeling allow elucidation of electron injection ability of the dye. The resulting maximum efficiencies (η) of 1.78 and 1.63% for α-mangostin sensitization were obtained in acidified acetone and acidified ethanol, respectively. Three dye combination systems were performed to elucidate the effects of dye adsorption patterns on DSSC efficiencies. The binary system B_Cya_α-MT shows the best action (η 1.32%) compares to those of the others binary B_α-MT_Cya (η 0.64%) and cocktail C_α-MT + Cya (η 0.60%) systems. Based on the finding of this work, α-mangostin has been found very useful as sensitizer of DSSCs and has also shown the potential, value added benefits in fabrication of low cost photovoltaic device. Additionally, it is great to design dye double layer architecture by binary system to enhance the efficiency of DSSC using cyanin which having faster adsorption and efficient binding to TiO2 follow α-mangostin that has relatively slower diffusions along the stronger electron injection force.