Absorption spectra and photovoltaic characterization of chlorophyllins as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells

• The influence of the solvent polarity on the dye absorption bands was analysed.
• A study of the Soret and Qy bands of chlorophyllins was presented.
• The effect of copper on chlorophyllins’ sensitizer properties was investigated.
• The dependence of solar cells performances by electrolyte composition was studied.

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on Chlorine-e6 (Chl-e6), a Chlorophyll a derivative, and Chl-e6 containing Cu, have been investigated by carrying out incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) and current–voltage (I–V) measurements. The effect of the metallic ion and the influence of the solvent polarity on the dye aggregation and their absorption bands have been analysed by performing electronic absorption measurements. The dependence of the photoelectrochemical parameters of these DSSCs on the electrolyte by the addition of pyrimidine and/or pyrrole has been discussed in details. For the first time I–V curves for a DSSC based on copper Chl-e6 dye have been shown and compared with Zn based chlorophyllin. Furthermore, the performance of a Cu-Chl-e6 based DSSC has been deeply improved by a progressive optimization of the TiO2 multilayer photoanode overcoming the best data reported in literature so far for this dye. It’s worth to emphasize that, the analysis reported in this paper supplies very useful information which paves the way to further detailed studies turned to the employment of natural pigments as sensitizers for solar cells.

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