Spectroscopic and photoelectric studies of phthalocyanines in polyvinyl alcohol for application in solar energy conversion

Abstract

Phthalocyanines are synthetic dyes which are shown to be good photoconverters which can be applied in a photoelectrochemical cell constructed of semiconducting and metallic electrodes. By means of spectroscopic investigation (absorption,fluorescence and photoacoustics) we have followed spectral properties of phthalocyanines complexed with metals dissolved in polyvinyl alcohol solution in order to determine the pathways of deactivation of their excited states. Spectroscopic investigations were accompanied with photovoltaic/photocurrent and current-voltage characteristics of the photoelectrochemical cell with dyes. It has been shown that there is a correlation between dye fluorescence feature and dye ability to electric photoconversion. The comparison of new data for metallic phthalocyanines with those obtained for porphyrins is discussed.