Colorless Dye Sensitized Solar Cells for Building Integration

Nadia Barbero^a^,^b, Maksym Bokan^a, Kateryna Bondar^a, Baptiste Charrier^a, Donato Pasculli^a, Mattia Rubes^a, Ana Yancy Segura Zarate^a, Raffaele Borrelli^c, Matteo Bonomo^a, Simone Galliano^a, Frédéric Sauvage^d, Claudia Barolo^a^,^b

^aDepartment of Chemistry, NIS and INSTM Reference Centre, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, Torino, 10125 Italy

^bInstitute of Science and Technology for Ceramics (ISSMC-CNR), Via Granarolo, 64, 48018 Faenza, Italy

^cDipartimento di Scienze Agrarie Forestali e Alimentari, University of Torino, Largo Paolo Braccini 2, 10095 Grugliasco, Italy

^dCNRS, UPJV, Université Picardie Jules Verne, LRCS, Laboratoire de réactivité et Chimie du Solide, UMR 7314, Amiens, France

Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV25)

Roma, Italy, 2025 May 12th - 14th

Organizers: Filippo De Angelis, Francesca Brunetti and Claudia Barolo

Invited Speaker Session, Nadia Barbero, presentation 200
Publication date: 17th February 2025

Transparent photovoltaics (TPV) is an emerging and disruptive technology in which the solar cells selectively transmit the visible light to human eyes harvesting UV and/or NIR photons. [1] TPV is attractive as it widens the deployment of PV into new sectors, like building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), greenhouses, car windows and sunglasses, thus providing an immense potential to generate solar electricity beyond the conventional rooftops and solar power plants. One possible approach to TPV is based on wavelength-selective absorbers where the dye requires an absorption far from the photopic response of the human eye.
Limited classes of dyes possess energetic levels that can ensure an efficient injection while having a bandgap sufficiently narrow to selectively absorb the NIR region. [2] Among these classes, polymethine dyes (cyanines and squaraines) are promising for their high molar extinction coefficient and easily tunable properties through modification of central core or lateral units. Cyanines in particular have already been investigated for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) devices with promising results in terms of transparency and performance. Fully transparent and colorless DSSC were built reaching 80 % transmittance in complete devices. [3,4]
The synthesis of new series of cyanines and squaraines have been performed in a one-step reaction under microwave heating, saving time and money in the process, and even increasing yields and purity. A simple crystallization of the crude products yielded very low cost and industrially scalable products.
These new sensitizers have been deeply characterized in terms of their optical, photophysical and electrochemical properties, showing interesting structure/property relationships. Finally, photovoltaic performances have been evaluated in lab-scale DSSCs and optimized by different anode modifications and electrolyte formulations.

References:

[1] Traverse, C. J., Pandey, R., Barr, M. C., Lunt, R. R. Emergence of highly transparent photovoltaics for distributed applications. Nat. Energy 2, 849-860 (2017).

[2] Grifoni, F.; Bonomo, M.; Naim, W.; Barbero, N.; Alnasser, T.; Dzeba, I.; Giordano, M.; Tsaturyan, A.; Urbani, M.; Torres, T.; Barolo, C.; Sauvage, F. Toward Sustainable, Colorless, and Transparent Photovoltaics: State of the Art and Perspectives for the Development of Selective Near-Infrared Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells. Adv. Energy Mater. 2021, 11, 2101598.

[3] Naim, W.; Novelli, V.; Nikolinakos, I.; Barbero, N.; Dzeba, I.; Grifoni, F.; Reng, Y.; Alnasser, T.; Velardo, A.; Borrelli, R.; Haacke, S.; Zakeeruddin, S.M.; Graetzel, M.; Barolo, C.; Sauvage, F. Transparent and Colorless Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Exceeding 75% Average Visible Transmittance. JACS Au 2021, 1, 409−426.

[4] Naim, W.; Grifoni, F.; Challuri, V.; Mathiron, D.; Ceurstemont, S.; Chotard, P.; Alnasser, T.; Dzeba, I.; Barbero, N.; Pilard, S.; Barolo, C.; Sauvage, F. Hybrid sulfurothioate-based electrolyte improving aesthetics, performance, and stability of transparent NIR-dye-sensitized solar cells. Cell Reports Physical Science 2023, 4, 101455.

Acknowledgements:

This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grand Agreement n° 826013 (IMPRESSIVE). This study is a result of the research project “nuovi Concetti, mAteriali e tecnologie per l’iNtegrazione del fotoVoltAico negli edifici in uno scenario di generazione diffuSa” (CANVAS), funded by the Italian Ministry of the Environment and the Energy Security, through the Research Fund for the Italian Electrical System (type-A call, published on G.U.R.I. n. 192 on 18-08-2022). This research acknowledges support from the Project CH4.0 under the MUR program “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2023–2027” (CUPD13C22003520001).

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