Dataset Information

Plasmonic enhancement of betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cells via tailored bimodal size distribution of silver nanoparticles.

ABSTRACT: Natural pigment-based photosensitizers are an attractive pathway for realizing low cost and environmentally friendly solar cells. Here, broadband light-harvesting is achieved using two natural pigments, betanin and lawsone, absorbing in the green and blue region of the solar spectrum respectively. The use of bimodal size distribution of AgNPs tailored for each of the pigments to further increase their efficiency is the key feature of this work. This study demonstrates a significant enhancement in current-density, voltage, and efficiency by 20.1%, 5.5%, and 28.6% respectively, in a betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cell, via plasmonic enhancement using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The optimum sizes of the nanoparticles have been calculated by studying their optical response and electric field profiles using Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulations, aimed at matching their resonant wavelengths with the absorption bands of the dyes. Simulations show that AgNPs of diameters 20?nm and 60?nm are optimum for enhanced absorption by lawsone and betanin respectively. The FDTD simulations of the plasmonic photoelectrodes demonstrated 30% and 15% enhancement in the power absorption by betanin and lawsone at the LSPR peaks of the 60?nm and 20?nm AgNPs respectively. An optimum overall concentration of 2% (v/v) and a ratio of 4:1 (20?nm:60?nm) of the bimodal distribution of the AgNPs, was determined for incorporation in the photoanodes. An average efficiency of 1.02?±?0.006% was achieved by the betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cell with the bimodal distribution of AgNPs, compared to 0.793?±?0.006% achieved by the non-plasmonic solar cell of otherwise identical configuration. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy confirmed that the incorporation of the bimodal distribution of AgNPs in the solar cells also enabled enhanced electron lifetime and reduced recombination compared to the non-plasmonic counterpart, thereby improving the charge transfer. The plasmonic enhancement methodology presented here can be applied to further improve the efficiency of other natural dye-sensitized solar cells.

SUBMITTER: Sreeja S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7237482 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Plasmonic enhancement of betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cells via tailored bimodal size distribution of silver nanoparticles.

Sreeja S S Pesala Bala B

Scientific reports 20200519 1

Natural pigment-based photosensitizers are an attractive pathway for realizing low cost and environmentally friendly solar cells. Here, broadband light-harvesting is achieved using two natural pigments, betanin and lawsone, absorbing in the green and blue region of the solar spectrum respectively. The use of bimodal size distribution of AgNPs tailored for each of the pigments to further increase their efficiency is the key feature of this work. This study demonstrates a significant enhancement i ...[more]

PMID: 32427922

Similar Datasets

Project description:Co-sensitization is an important strategy toward efficiency enhancement of solar cells by enabling better light harvesting across the solar spectrum. Betanin is a natural dye which absorbs light in the major portion of the incident solar spectrum (green region) and is the most efficient natural pigment used in dye-sensitized solar cells. This study investigates the performance enhancement of a betanin solar cell by co-sensitizing it with two natural pigments which show complementary light absorption, i.e., indigo and lawsone, absorbing in the red and blue regions of the solar spectrum, respectively. The calculated highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energies of the pigment molecules, derived from density functional theory (DFT) simulations, confirmed their optimal alignment with respect to the conduction band energy of the TiO2 semiconductor and reduction potential energy level of the I-/I3 - electrolyte, a necessary requirement for optimal device performance. Lawsone solar cells displayed better performance, showing average efficiencies of 0.311 ± 0.034%, compared to indigo solar cells showing efficiencies of 0.060 ± 0.004%. Betanin was co-sensitized with indigo and lawsone, and the performances of the co-sensitized solar cells were compared. The betanin/lawsone co-sensitized solar cell showed a higher average efficiency of 0.793 ± 0.021% compared to 0.655 ± 0.019% obtained for the betanin/indigo co-sensitized solar cell. An 11.7% enhancement in efficiency (with respect to betanin) was observed for the betanin/indigo solar cell, whereas a higher enhancement of 25.5% was observed for the betanin/lawsone solar cell. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy studies confirmed that the higher efficiency can be attributed to the higher electron lifetime of 313.8 ms in the betanin/lawsone co-sensitized solar cell compared to 291.4 ms in the betanin/indigo solar cell. This is due to the energy levels being more optimally aligned in lawsone compared to that of indigo, as observed in the DFT studies, and the lack of dipole moment in indigo, resulting in more efficient charge separation and charge transfer in lawsone.

Dataset Information

Plasmonic enhancement of betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cells via tailored bimodal size distribution of silver nanoparticles.

Publications

Plasmonic enhancement of betanin-lawsone co-sensitized solar cells via tailored bimodal size distribution of silver nanoparticles.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets