Development of dye sensitized solar cells from ruthenium(II) complexes

This thesis reported the synthesis of TWO series of ruthenium (II) complexes of which the physical, photophysical, and electrochemical properties of the target complexes were studied. The materials were studied by dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSCs) with iodide/tri-iodide electrolyte under standard AM 1.5 (100 mW/cm2). In the first part the co-sentisized dyes, specifically P2+N719 and YN01+N719 (P2 was 2-phenyl-5-(trifluoromethyl) pyrido) bis (2,2’-bipyridine-4,4’-dicarboxylic acid) ruthenium (II) hexafluorophosphate and YN01 was cis [bis(thiocyanato)] bis (2,2’-biquinoline-4,4’-dicarboxylic acid (4-carboxy-2,2’-bipyridine-4’-caboxylate)ruthenium (II)] tetrabutyl-ammonium). It was found that the co-dyes showed photovoltaic effeciencies of 2.37% and 1.59% compared with pure dyes P2 (1.42%), YN07 (0.46%), and N719 (5.17%). In the second part, the thiocyanate free ruthenium (II) complexes were coded as [Ru(dcbpy)2(ppy)]PF6:(PP1), [Ru(dcbpy)2(PL1)]PF6: (PP2), [Ru(dcbpy)2(PL2)]PF6: (PP3), and [Ru(dcbpy)2(PL3)]PF6: (PP5) (dcbpy was 2,2’-bipyridine-4,4’-dicarboxylic acid, ppy was 2-phenypyridine, PL1 was 2-phenylpyridine-3(pyridine-2-yl) benzoate, PL2 was methyl-2-phenylisonicotinate, and PL3 was methyl-2-(3-(methoxycarbonyl)-phenyl) isonicotinate. It was found that DSSCs showed photovoltaic efficiencies at 3.10%, 0.69%, 1.54% and 1.53% respectively, compared with N719 (7.44%)