Low cost dye-sensitized solar cells based on zinc oxide and natural anthocyanin dye from Ardisia elliptica fruits

Abstract Natural dye is attractive to be used in dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) as an alternative sensitizer. The main advantage of natural dye is its low cost production. Only simple procedure is needed to produce natural dyes where the pigments of plant parts like flowers, leaves, fruits and tubers were extracted using common solvents in the laboratory. In addition, the resources of natural dye are not only abundant, but also completely biodegradable. In this work, the natural dye was produced by extracting anthocyanin pigment from Ardisia elliptica fruits and called as Ardisia elliptica dye (AED). The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level of AED was −6.06 eV and −3.88 eV respectively. AED is absorbed light in the green region with maximum absorption at a wavelength of 536.49 nm and the band gap was 2.31 eV which is acceptable as sensitizer for DSSC. Our photoelectrode of DSSC was fabricated by sensitizing zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles layer with AED in different sensitizing duration (dye-loading time) and the best obtained photo conversion efficiency (PCE) was 0.04% which has been sensitized for 20 min.