A Study of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Using Pomegranate Dye as Sensitizer with Two Different Concentrations in Terms of Solar Parameters

The human being is seeking luxurious life, therefore, using motor vehicles, industries, and household appliances as machinery which runs on fossil fuels i.e., gasoline, coal, diesel, gases, etc. These pieces of machinery burn fossil fuels and release toxic carbonaceous substances as a by-product in the form of pollutants and are nearly ending up. Solar energy is one of the best alternatives for producing clean and green energy to meet the energy demand. Over five decades, silicon solar cells have been commercially successful, but Dye-Sensitized Solar cells (DSSCs) are prioritized due to some limitations. In DSSC, ruthenium complex-based solar cells are the most efficient, but the high cost of the dye, toxicity and rarely available metal complex introduce organic dye. The organic dyes are cost-effective, abundantly available, and easy to process from extraction to fabrication. It can be extracted from different plant portions (fruit, flower, pulp, seeds, and peels). The current work used pomegranate dye with two different concentrations (5% and 10%), TiO₂ semiconductor, and iodine-triiodide electrolyte to fabricate two solar cells. Both cells were characterized under one sun intensity of 1000W/m² at 1.5 AM. Overall, both cells were efficient, but the solar cell with 10% dye solution provided better solar parameters. This study concluded that highly concentrated dye can have better adsorption with semiconductors resulting in better efficiency.