A Visible-NIR Responsive Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Based on Diatom Frustules and Cosensitization of Photopigments from Diatom and Purple Bacteria

Diatoms exhibit high solar energy harvesting efficiency due to their remarkably organized, hierarchical micro/nanoporous, light-trapping, and scattering frustules. At present, few studies focus on cosensitization of natural near-infrared dye to expand the spectral response of dye-sensitized solar ce...

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Published inJournal of chemistry Vol. 2020; no. 2020; pp. 1 - 10
Main Authors Yang, Suping, He, Zhihui, Chen, Shicheng, Su, Haiyang, Zhang, Xiaobo, Xiao, Xixiang, Zhao, Chungui
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2020
Hindawi
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Hindawi Limited
Wiley
Subjects
Absorption spectra
Aqueous solutions
Bacteria
Comparative analysis
Dye-sensitized solar cells
Dyes
Efficiency
Electrodes
Energy conversion efficiency
Energy harvesting
Ethanol
Infrared spectra
Near infrared radiation
Photoelectricity
Photovoltaic cells
Solar energy
Spectral sensitivity
Titanium dioxide
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Summary:Diatoms exhibit high solar energy harvesting efficiency due to their remarkably organized, hierarchical micro/nanoporous, light-trapping, and scattering frustules. At present, few studies focus on cosensitization of natural near-infrared dye to expand the spectral response of dye-sensitized solar cells. In this study, the diatom frustule-TiO2 (12 : 5) composite film was prepared and assembled it on the TiO2 electrode. Compared to the single TiO2 layer film, diatom frustule-TiO2 (12 : 5) composite film sensitized by diatom’s dye showed the conversion efficiency of 0.719%. To expand the light-harvesting response to near-infrared region spectra, the cosensitized dyes were used to fabricate the visible-near-infrared responsive dye-sensitized solar cells. The cosensitization diatom frustule-TiO2 (12 : 5) composite film exhibited two distinct absorption bands in the near-infrared region and reached a higher conversion efficiency of 1.321%, which was approximately 1.4 or 1.7 folds higher than that of cosensitization double-TiO2 film or single TiO2 layer film, respectively, and approximately 3.7 or 1.7 folds higher than that of the single TiO2 layer film sensitized by diatom dye or purple bacterial dye, respectively. The results showed that the combination between diatom frustule-TiO2 with cosensitization natural dyes could significantly improve the photoelectric performance of visible-near-infrared responsive dye-sensitized solar cells.
ISSN:2090-9063
2090-9071
DOI:10.1155/2020/1710989