Experimentation of dyes extracted from the peels of red banana and aloe vera as sensitizers for TiO-based dye-sensitized solar cells.

As an attempt of utilizing the peels to extract dye sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), the peels of red banana (fruit) and aloe vera (leaf) were used in this study. As far as we know, for the first time the peels of red banana and aloe vera are being used as sensitizer for DSSC. Acetone and ethanol were used as solvent in extracting dyes from these peels. For the four extracted dyes, UV-visible and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopic studies were carried out to know their absorption range and the functional groups present in it. DSSCs were made by using these extracted dyes as sensitizer and commercially available TiO as semiconductor oxide. XRD and SEM were recorded for the prepared TiO paste. To know about the performance of these solar cells, J-V characterization was taken and the efficiency of the DSSCs were determined. It was seen that among all the four DSSCs prepared, the DSSC made with the dye taken from aloe vera peel by using ethanol as solvent showed the higher efficiency of 0.679%.