1 research outputs found
Phenothiazine-Sensitized Organic Solar Cells: Effect of Dye Anchor Group Positioning on the Cell Performance
Effect of positioning of the cyanoacrylic acid anchoring
group
on ring periphery of phenothiazine dye on the performance of dye-sensitized
solar cells (DSSCs) is reported. Two types of dyes, one having substitution
on the C-3 aromatic ring (Type 1) and another through the N-terminal
(Type 2), have been synthesized for this purpose. Absorption and fluorescence
studies have been performed to visualize the effect of substitution
pattern on the spectral coverage and electrochemical studies to monitor
the tuning of redox levels. B3LYP/6-31G* studies are performed to
visualize the frontier orbital location and their significance in
charge injection when surface modified on semiconducting TiO<sub>2</sub>. New DSSCs have been built on nanocrystalline TiO<sub>2</sub> according
to traditional two-electrode Grätzel solar cell setup with
a reference cell based on N719 dye for comparison. The lifetime of
the adsorbed phenothiazine dye is found to be quenched significantly
upon immobilizing on TiO<sub>2</sub> suggesting charge injection from
excited dye to semiconducting TiO<sub>2</sub>. The performances of
the cells are found to be prominent for solar cells made out of Type
1 dyes compared to Type 2 dyes. This trend has been rationalized on
the basis of spectral, electrochemical, computational, and electrochemical
impedance spectroscopy results