THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT DYES ON A DIFFERENT FORM OF DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS
E. L. EFURUMIBE *
Department of Physics, College of Physical and Applied Sciences, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.
A. D. ASIEGBU
Department of Physics, College of Physical and Applied Sciences, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.
F. U. OKWUNODULU
Department of Chemistry, College of Physical and Applied Sciences, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.
M. O. EZE
Department of Physics, College of Physical and Applied Sciences, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
In this research work, three different solar cells were built using three different locally produced sensitized dyes. The dimension of the glass plates used in building the cell is: 300 mm x 300 mm x 3.88 mm. The aim of this work was to develop a dye-sensitized solar cell a bit different from the Grätzel’s cell. The sole aim of this work was to improve the solar to electricity conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells. After building the cells, they were illuminated for two hours each and readings taken. Here an efficiency of less than 2% was recorded for the three different cells built. The results also show that the rate of production of electric current by the cells was directly proportional to the intensity of the incoming solar radiation.
Keywords: Dye, cells, efficiency, current, intensity, voltage