Isolation and characterization of pigmented marine bacteria for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) application

• Main Author: Cheong, Wei Shien.
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: unimas 2014
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QR Microbiology
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/20766/3/Cheong%20Wei%20Shien%2024pgs.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/20766/6/Cheong%20Wei%20Shien%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/20766/

Solar energy could be used in most regions on the surface of the Earth, and is renewable. Nowadays, dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) which could use natural pigments as dye sensitizer has attracted considerable attention. Since there are some drawbacks of pigments extracted from plants and fruits, bacterial pigments could be an alternative source for the dye sensitizer. Thus, the aim of this project was to isolate and characterize the marine bacteria which can produce pigment to be used as dye sensitizer for DSSC. In this study, seawater samples were collected from Jeti Muara Tebas and Pantai Pasir Pandak. The bacterium that produced red pigment was selected. The selected bacterium was characterized as Pseudoalteromonas sp. by using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PC R) and 16S rR.NA gene sequencing. Then, the bacterial pigment was extracted and characterized as prodigiosin by Thin Laver Chromatography (TLC), U V/ Vis Spectroscopy, Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The result of the performance ot- the extracted bacterial pigment as dye sensitizer in DSSC showed that bacterial pigment can be used as an alternative dve sensitizer in DSSC.