Extraction and Characterization of Apocarotenoids (Cis-Norbixin and Cis-Bixin) as Natural Sensitizers for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells.
Jessica Barichello a, Giuseppe Calogero b, Antonio Bartolotta b, Gaetano Di Marco b
a Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics ,Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30107 Mestre (VE), Italy
b CNR-IPCF, viale F. Stagno D'Alcontres 37, MESSINA I- 98158, Italy
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV16)
Swansea, United Kingdom, 2016 June 29th - July 1st
Organizers: James Durrant, Henry Snaith and David Worsley
Poster, Jessica Barichello, 197
Publication date: 28th March 2016

We present a study on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) based on apocarotenoids extracted from Achiote (Bixa orellana) a tropical shrub originating from the American continent. From the achiote seeds, we obtained a dark-red extract employing two new methods: one based on acetone and another based on diethyl ether. We studied the effect of the 4-tert-butyl-pyrydin on the sensitizer performances and the effect of the thickness of TiO2 layers. Bixin�s solar conversion efficiency was deeply improved by a progressive optimization of the photoanode TiO2 multilayer and of the electrolyte compositions overcoming the best performance reported in literature so far. It�s worth to emphasize that, although presently bixin based DSCs are still below the efficiency requirements for practical applications, our results indicate that these pigments are promising candidates to be potentially exploited, in the future, for production of non-toxic, cheap and fully biodegradable tandem dye-sensitized solar cells and as co-sensitizers since their absorption spectra is complementary to that of others dyes



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