Ruthenium phthalocyanines with axial carboxylate ligands: Synthesis and function in solar cells based on nanocrystalline TiO2

Abstract

The synthesis and characterization of phthalocyaninato-ruthenium ( PcRu ) complexes with potential functional axial ligands are described. The solubility of these PcRu complexes was much improved compared to their parent phthalocyanines without Ru , enabling purification by normal flash column chromatography and also NMR measurements in common solvents (e. g. DMSO - d 6 and CDCl 3). Adsorption of these phthalocyanine dyes onto the surface of a semiconductor through the carboxyl group(s) in the axial ligands prevents to some extent formation of H-aggregates, which is typical for phthalocyanines. It also prevents stacking of the dye molecules on the surface. The photovoltaic behavior of sandwich solar cells based on nanostructured TiO 2 films sensitized by these PcRu complexes was studied under irradiation with visible light. For a solar cell based on bis(4-carboxypyridine)-phthalocyaninato ruthenium(II) (1) sensitized nanoporous-nanocrystalline TiO 2, a monochromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 21% was obtained at 640 nm. The overall conversion efficiency (η) was 0.61%, which is one of the best results for a solar cell based on a phthalocyanine dye. For a cell based on (4-carboxypyridine)-(4-(2-ethoxy)ethyloxycarbo-nylpyridine)-2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-octa(n-pentyloxy)-phthalocyaninato ruthenium(II) (5) sensitized TiO 2, a IPCE of 6.6% at 640 nm and η of 0.58% were obtained.