Metal-free organic-dye-based flexible dye-sensitized solar textiles with panchromatic effect

The first completely solid, multi-color, flexible solar textile was fabricated for use as a metal-free organic dye-sensitized solar textile with a satin structure. A one-dimensional, ZnO nanorod directly grown on a fiber-type stainless steel wire was selectively sensitized using three different indoline dyes (D102, D131 and D149) with different optical properties for the photoanode, and a Pt-coated wire was used as the counter electrode. A solar textile composed of five photoanodes and counter electrodes with three different main color was woven into a satin structure and casted with a solid electrolyte. For multi-color solar textiles, both the efficiency and current density were higher than the single textiles with the same main color, indicating the panchromatic effect of a multi-color system. The lifetime of each dye loaded sample was evaluated under accelerated conditions and further compared with the color values of the Commission International d'Eclairage LAB.