Can anyone give me info on dye sensitized solar cells that use chlorophyll as the dye?
Question:
Answer:
There are a number of technical papers on the subject: The following is the abstract from one of them and the link below is a Google search. If you have access to a University library you should be able to look many of these papers up for free. I suspect they will be very technical though. I assume you already understand the principles of dye sensitized solar cells but if not the Wikipedia article gives a nice introduction. The Wikipedia article mentions dye cells based on chlorophyll like chemistry that are anticipated to be produced by a company called G24 Inovations this year. Check out the third link. The Wikipedia article also mentions kits for making dye cells at home. The fourth link is to one source for a dye cell kit.
Document title
Dye-sensitized solar cells using a chlorophyll a derivative as the sensitizer and carotenoids having different conjugation lengths as redox spacers
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
WANG Xiao-Feng ; JUNFENG XIANG ; PENG WANG ; KOYAMA Yasushi ; YANAGIDA Shozo ; WADA Yuji ; HAMADA Kazunori ; SASAKI Shin-Ichi ; TAMIAKI Hitoshi ;
Résumé / Abstract
Titania-based Grätzel-type solar cells were fabricated by the use of a chlorophyll a derivative (methyl 3-carboxy-3-devinyl-pyropheoph... a) as the dye sensitizer. A 10% each of carotenoids, including neurosporene, spheroidene, lycopene, anhydrorhodovibrin and spirilloxanthin with numbers of conjugated double bonds, n = 9-13, was added as a conjugated spacer in order to neutralize the dye radical cation and to block the reverse electron transfer. The short-circuit current density (J[s][c]) and the solar energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency (η) systematically increased, with increasing n, from the values of 10.1 mA cm[-][2] and 3.1% (with no carotenoid) up to 11.5 mA cm[-][2] and 4.0% (with spirilloxanthin, n = 13), i.e., an enhancement of 30%.
Revue / Journal Title
Chemical physics letters (Chem. phys. lett.) ISSN 0009-2614 CODEN CHPLBC
Source / Source
2005, vol. 408, no4-6, pp. 409-414 [6 page(s) (article)]
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