Fabrication and Characterisation of Titanium Dioxide Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cell using Flame of the Forest Dye

A Titanium dioxide (TiO2) based Die Sensitised Solar Cell (DSSC) using Flame of the Forest (Butea monosperma) was fabricated on a glass substrate and characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The cell had TiO2 as a photo electrode, flame of forest as a dye sensitizer, iodide/iodide solution as an electrolyte and Platinum/Transparent Conducting Oxide as a counter electrode. The photo electrochemical characteristics of TiO DSSCs were tested under simulated sunlight AM 1.5 from a solar simulator with the radiant power of 100mW/cm2. It was found that the DSSC based on TiO2 generated photocurrent with short-circuit current, Isc = 0.14mA; open-circuit voltage, Voc = 0.5; fill factor, ff = 0.652 and a photo conversion efficiency of 0.08%. This is comparatively good when evaluated with similar low-cost DSSCs. The Isc was found to increase with increasing thickness of the TiO2 photo electrode, while the Voc of TiO2 DSSC was found to be independent of the morphology and dye adsorption surface area of TiO2.