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Chlorophylls and xanthophylls of crop plants as dyes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC)
journal contribution
posted on 2017-10-21, 07:41 authored by Rossi M, Matteocci F, Di Carlo A, Forni CNatural dyes have become a viable alternative to expensive and
rare organic sensitizers because of their low cost, easy attainability,
abundance of supply of raw materials and environmental friendliness.
Chlorophyll, the most abundant pigment, can be extracted from plant
leaves with simple and inexpensive methods, but it’s difficult to use as
a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) sensitizer due to the absence of OH
and COOH groups. The opposite is true for xanthophylls, a particular
class of carotenoids that contain free hydroxyl groups and thus may be
considered as potential DSSC sensitizers. In this work we describe a new
and inexpensive method of chlorophyll extraction from leaves based on
the use of a basic solvent that provides the creation of COOH groups,
allowing chlorophyll binding on the TiO2 layer. This modified
chlorophyll dye showed a higher DSSC efficiency level (0.72%) compared
to xanthophylls, which had lower efficiency.
