Hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives for UV-selective and visibly transparent dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Naturally abundant dyes are very attractive for the development of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, such as caffeic acid (CA), ferulic acid (FA), and p-coumaric acid (PA), were considered for the selective harvesting of ultraviolet A (UVA) (315–400 nm) photons. Their spectroscopic and electrochemical properties were investigated both theoretically and experimentally. They were further successfully adopted as photosensitizers in UV-selective and visibly transparent DSSCs, which exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 0.22–0.38% under AM (air mass) 1.5G (global) illumination (100 mW/cm2) and 3.40–3.62% under UVA irradiation (365 nm, 115.22 mW/cm2), with a corresponding visible light transmittance (VLT) of 49.07–43.72% and a general color rendering index (Ra) of 93–90.

Chromaticity of Gromwell, Cape jasmine Dyeing, and Effects of Zinc Oxide/Polyphenol Treatment with Copper Mordanting for UV Protection

“…It was found that the combination of Cu-mordanting with ZnO/polyphenol treatments made the fabrics less reflective, i.e., more absorbent than the unexposed samples in UV-A. The hydroxyl groups from tannin provided good affinity with other molecules, resulting from the formation of hydrogen bonds [53].…”

Transparent Near‐IR Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells: Ultrafast Spectroscopy Reveals the Effects of Driving Force and Dye Aggregation

“…Third generation solar cells, based on perovskites, organic molecular systems or hybrid solutions, such as dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) need to mature more in terms of long‐term stability, but they are already explored for alternative modes of usage (e. g. integration in tissue) or large scale deployment approaches, like “building‐integrated PV” [1,2] . For the latter in particular, a very appealing prospect is the development of transparent and colorless solar cells, the active materials of which absorb only the invisible near‐UV [3] and near‐IR parts of the sun's spectrum. Since 45 % of sunlight radiation received on Earth lies in the near‐IR (λ≤1700 nm), this part of the spectrum is presently targeted by the development of selectively near‐IR absorbing solar cells (SCs), based either on organic photovoltaics (OPV) [1,4] or on DSSCs [5–7] .…”

Preliminary study: Potency metal complexes with UV-active ligands as dye sensitizer in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Morin also has UV absorption abilities. The UV absorption wavelength of morin generally ranges from 330 -365 nm (UV A) [7][8].…”