Natural Dye For Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) Using Mangosteen Pericarp And Adenium Obesum Flower

• Main Author: Hang, Chang Oon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: IRC 2015
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/16285/1/CHANG%20OON%20HANG_15290_FYP.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/16285/

Dye sensitized solar cells is now a significant research in the last two decades due to its fundamental solution in the energy conversion at lowest cost. Besides that, the ease of fabrication, flexibility and widely available materials have made the dye sensitized solar cell a promising technology towards future innovation in low cost solar cell. Although the novel organic synthetic dyes provide a high efficiency and durability compared to natural dye, there are several limitations such as high cost and complexity of synthesis and toxicity of materials. These setbacks had opened up for further research of utilizing the natural sensitizers which is environmental friendly and ease in preparation. The main objective of this research is to determine the optimum condition of types of solvent, extraction temperature and pH value for extraction in improving the efficiency of natural dye using mangosteen pericarp and adenium obesum flower. The mangosteen pericarp extracted with acetone solvent shows the highest light absorption intensity and power conversion efficiency value. The optimum pH condition for the mangosteen pericarp extract is at pH 1.93 with the highest efficiency. For the adenium obesum extract, the optimum temperature for the extraction is at 40ºC and the adenium obesum extracted at pH 4.01 shows a high efficiency. The mixture of mangosteen pericarp-adenium obesum shows significantly the highest light absorption intensity and photoelectrochemical values compared to its pure extracts. The optimum pH for the mixture extract is at pH value of 2.93.