Influence of the pH value of anthocyanins on the electrical properties of dye-sensitized solar cells

• Main Authors: Irén Juhász Junger, Sarah Vanessa Homburg, Hubert Meissner, Thomas Grethe, Anne Schwarz Pfeiffer, Johannes Fiedler, Andreas Herrmann, Tomasz Blachowicz, Andrea Ehrmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIMS Press 2017-03-01
• Series: AIMS Energy
• Subjects: dye-sensitized solar cell; pH value; anthocyanin
• Online Access: http://www.aimspress.com/energy/article/1321/fulltext.html

In recent years the harvesting of renewable energies became of great importance. This led to a rapid development of dye-sensitized solar cells which can be produced from low-purity materials. The best electrical properties are provided by cells prepared using synthetical, ruthenium based dyes. Unfortunately, most of them are toxic and expensive. The anthocyanins extracted for example from hibiscus flowers yield a more cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to toxic dyes, however, with a loss of solar cell efficiency. In this article the possibility of improvement of the conversion efficiency by modification of the pH value of the dye is investigated. By decrease of the pH value, an increase of efficiency by a factor of two was achieved.