Citrus fruit peels extracts as light harvesters for efficient ZnO-based dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Abstract Our voracious consumption of fossil fuels at an exponentially increasing rate has led to global warming and climate change. As a result of these problems, it is crucial to exploreother sources of clean energy. The natural pigmentsextraction and the performancedetermination in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs)from fruit peels of citrus were presented in this paper. Extraction of natural dye of citrus fruit peels of Citrus paradisi, Citrus sinensis, Citrus limonumandCitrus tangelo were employed as light sensitizers in fabricating ZnO-based DSSCs. The natural pigments extracts characteristics were analyzedby UV-Vis absorption, Fourier transforms infra-red (FTIR) and Photoluminescence spectroscopy techniques. The semiconductor active layer material was synthesized and analyzed. The characteristics of photo-voltaic parameters for the invented DSSCs were studied under simulated sunlight. The presence of chlorophyll derivative in most of the extracted dyes is evident as the core pigments with additional accessory pigments. The conversion efficiencies of sunlight to electrical energy of pheophytin ‘a’ dye ZnO based solar cells are calculated to be 0.028%, 0.013%, 0.004% and 0.022% for Citrus paradisi, Citrus sinensis, Citrus limonumand Citrus tangelo, respectively. Better performance of photo-sensitized was observed for the extracts of Citrus paradisicompared to the other extracts and this may be owing to the better charge transfer between the pigments of Citrus paradisi and surface of ZnOphotoactive layer. The conversion of visible light to electricitywas produced from natural pigments and ZnO photoactive layerbased DSSCs, resulted into superb photo-electric characteristics.