APPLICATION OF ACIDIFIED CHLOROPHYLLIN COMPLEXED WITH FERROCENE DERIVATIVE IN DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELL

Abstract

In this work, the application of ferrocene and acetylferrocene in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) was explored. Acidified chlorophyllin was used as the base dye to form a complex with ferrocene and acetylferrocene. It was found that when only acidified chlorophyllin was used, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE), which was at 0.07%, was obtained at the concentration of 0.075 mmol/L. Different complexes were tested at different initial mole fractions of ferrocene and acetylferrocene. The amount of ferrocene being adsorbed increased as the initial mole fraction of ferrocene increased. On the other hand, the amount of acetylferrocene being adsorbed increased and started to decline slightly at the initial mole fraction of 0.50. Due to weak interaction between ferrocene and acetylferrocene with acidified chlorophyllin, both metallocene were dissolved in the electrolyte solvent when the electrolyte was added to the devices. Redox reaction took place between iodine present in the electrolyte and ferrocene, and resulted in the formation of precipitate, which led to lower concentration of electrolyte. Lower concentration of electrolyte resulted in drastic decline in short-circuit current (J_SC), PCE and slight decline in open-circuit voltage (V_OC) of acidified chlorophyllin-ferrocene device. On the other hand, acidified chlorophyllin-acetylferrocene device exhibited similar trend to acidified chlorophyllin-ferrocene device with its J_SC to be lower than J_SC of acidified chlorophyllin-ferrocene device, which might be caused by higher charge recombination due to the presence of acetyl ferrocenium ion in the electrolyte. Therefore, it was discovered that the formation of the complexes between acidified chlorophyllin with ferrocene and acetylferrocene did not help in improving the performance of DSSC