Review on Natural Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs)

Abstract

In a conversion system of pure and non-convectional solar energy to electricity, dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) encourage the fabrication of photovoltaic devices providing high conversion efficiency at low cost. The dye as a sensitizer plays a vital role in performance evaluation of DSSCs. Natural dyes (organic dyes) has come to be a worth-while substitute to the rare and expensive inorganic sensitizers because of its cost effective, extreme availability and biodegradable. Different parts of a plant like fruits, leaves, flowers petals and bark have been tested over the years as sensitizers. The properties, together with some other parameters of these pigments give rise to improve in the operation standard of DSSCs. This review hash-out the history of DSSC with a focus on the recent developments of the natural dyes applications in this specific area with their overall appearance, the various components and the working principle of DSSCs as well as the work done over the years on natural dye based DSSCs.