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  • Recent progress and utiliza...
    Kumara, N.T.R.N.; Lim, Andery; Lim, Chee Ming; Petra, Mohamad Iskandar; Ekanayake, Piyasiri

    Renewable & sustainable energy reviews, 10/2017, Letnik: 78
    Journal Article

    Although efficiency of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) is still below the performance level of the market dominance silicon solar cells, in the last two decades DSSC has gathered sufficient interests because of the simplicity in device fabrication and low material cost, and therefore, DSSC is providing a possibility of solar cells production at a low entry cost. This review presents the research progress made in the implementation of natural pigments in DSSC. These pigments function as dye sensitizers and they play a major role in DSSC by absorbing light, and supplying electrons to the semiconductor matrixes in the cell. The common choices of dyes are the metal complexes, organic and/or natural dyes. A better efficiency with higher durability is observed for DSSC using metal complexes and organic dyes, however, the process of synthesizing these dyes is laborious, costly, and involves the use of toxic materials. As an alternative, natural pigments (dyes) found in plants such as anthocyanin, carotenoid, aurone, chlorophyll, tannin, betalain and many others are accepted as dyes in DSSCs. These natural pigments are easily obtained from fruits, flowers, leaves, seeds, barks and various parts of plants. Despite the limited performance of natural dyes, the prevailing advantages of natural dyes include high absorption coefficients, high light harvesting efficiency, low cost extraction and low toxicity. This review provides insight into the usage of the various natural pigments as sensitizers, the techniques to improve the pigments performance in DSSC, an outlook on the developmental work on the application of natural pigments in DSSC and their limitation. Additionally, the paper discusses the overall operation principle and the recent developments of each component of DSSC, as well as, comparing the material cost between natural dye and synthetic dye DSSC. •Natural pigments have a promising future as sensitizers in DSSCs.•Anthocyanin, carotenoid, aurone, chlorophyll, tannin and betalain are among the natural pigments used as sensitizers.•Low-cost extraction, vast availability and eco-friendliness are major attractions of natural pigments.•The total fabrication cost for DSSC sensitized with chlorophyll is less than ~€ 2 per Watt peak.