Photovoltaic performance of TiO2 and ZnO nanostructures in anthocyanin dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract This research paper reports the fabrication and evaluation of titanium dioxide (TiO2)- and zinc oxide (ZnO)-based dye-sensitized solar cells with anthocyanin dye extracted from pomegranate. TiO2 and ZnO were synthesized using the hydrothermal synthesis and chemical bath deposition techniques, respectively. The scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that TiO2 had nanopillars made up of nano rods with dimensions of 111.866, 90.521, and 81.908 nm, while ZnO had hexagonal patterned nanorods with lengths of 283.294 nm and diameters of 91.782 nm. The absorption spectra of the pomegranate dye were analysed and the strongest absorption peak was found to be at 520 nm, which corresponds to the existing anthocyanin pigment. The band gap of pomegranate dye was noted down to be 2.45 eV. The performance of the dye-sensitized solar cells was evaluated using one sun illumination (100 mW/cm2) where the dye-sensitized solar cell with TiO2 nanopillars achieved an improved efficiency of 0.46% whereas the dye-sensitized solar cell with ZnO nanorods showed a considerably reduced efficiency of 0.42%.