Porphyrins occur in a number of important biomolecules and are also synthetically made for use as probe component of chemical and biological sensors. The performance of dye sensitized solar cells with two different porphyrin dyes were investigated in this work. The two porphyrin complexes comprise of a metal-free 5, 10, 15, 20-meso-tetrakis-(9H-2-fluorene-yl) porphyrin (H2TFP) and its Zinc complex (ZnTFP). UV-Vis, Fluorescence, and Fourier Transformed Infrared measurements of the two dyes were carried out to evaluate their absorption, emission and binding characteristics. The surface morphology and elemental analysis of the porphyrin dye sensitized photoanodes were determined using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy Imaging and Transmission Electron Microscopy Imaging. Cyclic Voltammetry Studies, current-voltage characteristics and the electrochemical impedance spectroscopic studies were also carried out. Solar-to-electric energy efficiency of H2TFP dye sensitized solar cell was higher (0.11%) than that of the zinc complex (0.08%). Thus the metal free porphyrin generated more power than the zinc complex under similar conditions. The impedance measurement also shows less overall resistance for the free porphyrin (50Ω) compared with the zinc complex (130Ω). The LUMO levels of H2TFP and ZnTFP sensitizers are -0.87 eV and -0.77 eV respectively. Both of these LUMO values are higher than the lower bound level of the conduction band of TiO2 (−4.0 eV), ensuring an efficient injection of charge the excited porphyrin dye to the conduction band of the titanium dioxide.

Photophysical, electrochemical and photovoltaic properties of porphyrin-based dye sensitized solar cell

254th National Meeting (2017)

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