The preparation of natural dye for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC)

The utilization of natural dye as a substitute for ruthenium in DSSC has been developed. There are three types of dye that have been studied, among others, chlorophyll, beta-carotene, and anthocyanin. The natural dye extraction was successfully carried out by utilizing all three types of dye. For dye type chlorophyll obtained from extraction of spinach, grass jelly leaves, and broccoli. Melinjo skin extraction, shoe flower, and blue pea flowers of anthocyanin type. As for the dye type of beta-carotene extracted from yellow sweet potato and purple sweet potato. The solution used for the synthesis process consists of ethanol, methanol, n-hexane, acetic acid, and distilled water. From the results of dye extraction, the absorbance peak of Melinjo was obtained at a wavelength of 475 nm, grass jelly leaves 416 nm, purple sweet potato 532 nm, spinach 414 nm, blue pea 618 nm, broccoli 468 nm, rose mallow 522 nm, and yellow sweet potato 401 nm. DSSC fabrication characterization using Keithley 2620A and obtained the highest efficiency of 7.2 x 10^-2 with spinach dye.