Publication

Abstract : Abstract Photo-sensitizers, usually organic dye molecules, are considered to be one of the most expensive components in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The present work demonstrates a cost effective and high throughput upcycling process on jackfruit rags to extract a natural photo-active dye and its application as a photo-sensitizing candidate on titanium dioxide (TiO2) in DSSCs. The jackfruit derived natural dye (JDND) exhibits a dominant photo-absorption in a spectral range of 350 nm-800 nm with an optical bandgap of ∼1.1 eV estimated from UV-Visible absorption spectroscopic studies. The {JDND} in {DSSCs} as a major photo-absorbing candidate exhibits a photo-conversion efficiency of ∼1.1 % with short circuit current density and open circuit voltage of 2.2 mA.cm-2 and 805 mV respectively. Further, the results show that concentration of {JDND} plays an influential role on photovoltaic performance of the {DSSCs} due to the significant change in photo-absorption, exciton generation and electron injection into TiO2. The simple, high throughput method used to obtain {JDND} and the resulting {DSSC} performance can be considered as potential merits establishing a cost effective excitonic photovoltaic technology.