The potential of hybrid zinc chloride/ natural dyes extracts as photo-absorber in solar cell application

The energy crisis is a serious issue for every country in the world. The world's demands depends on the limited energy from resources such as fossil fuel and oil that are depleting due to rapid consumption. Thus, few renewable energy as alternative energy have been explored, including solar energy. Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) converts visible light energy through separation in photo-absorber layer of a wide gap semiconductor. Current solar cell from specific individual dyes extracts reported low solar efficiency. By tuning the photo-absorber properties of dyes extracts with metal the light absorbance and conductivity might be changed. In the present study, a simple and eco—friendly chemical reaction for the synthesis of zinc chloride nanoparticles (ZnCl2 NPs) with the extracts of Clitoria tematea (blue pea) and Curcuma longa (turmeric) was carried out. The prepared ZnCl2/dyes extracts of Clitoria tematea (blue pea) and Curcuma longa (turmeric) solutions were characterized with few analysis such as UV—vis absorption spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT—IR). It was found that with the mixture of zinc chloride/dyes extracts, Uv-vis absorbance was shifted and the bandgap value became smaller. With the smaller bandgap, the conductivity value for Clitoria ternatea (blue pea) was found increased, from 0.03 eV to 0.14 eV and for Curcuma longa (turmeric), the conductivity was found increased from 105.52 eV to 114.52 eV. Besides, the surface morphology viewed by SEM analysis exhibited morphology changes with difference in particles size. Thus, the objective of the study to prepare metal/dye extracts was successfully achieved and deeper information on tunability of bandgap (Eg) and its effect on the conductivity was obtained.