Dyes extracted from Hibiscus Sabdariffa flower and Pandannus amaryllifolius leaf as natural dye sensitizer by using an alcohol-based solvent

Abstract The efficiency improvement of Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC), the fabrication of DSSC by using metal-free organic natural dyes with a different type of solvents for the extraction of dye sensitizer was investigated. The metal-free organic Dye which comes from anthocyanin and chlorophyll dyes were dissolved by using different solvents, which are ethanol, methanol and mixture of ethanol and methanol. Anthocyanin dye was extracted from the petals of Hibiscus Sabdariffa (Roselle), and chlorophyll dye was extracted from the epidermal leaves of Pandannus amaryllifolius (Pandan). The purpose of using different solvents from alcohol-based was to determine which solvents that produce the highest effect in term of efficiency for DSSC. To confirm which solvents that produce the highest efficiency to the DSSC, the photovoltaic measurement was conducted, and the data was collected. From the photovoltaic analysis, the J-V characteristics under illumination are recorded. The sample that used anthocyanin dye extracted from Roselle flower diluted with methanol solvent gave the highest efficiency which is 0.0005% with the following parameters – Voc = 0.419 V, Jsc = 0.0057 mA/cm2 and FF = 0.24. Meanwhile, the sample that used chlorophyll dye extracted from Pandan leaves diluted with a mix of ethanol and methanol solvents gave the highest efficiency which is 0.00014% with the following parameters - Voc = 0.347 V, Jsc = 0.0016 mA/cm2 and FF = 0.25.