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Flavylium Dyes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Applications
Publication . Pinto, Ana Lúcia Moreira; Laia, César; Parola, António; Pereira, Clara
The ever-growing global energy consumption is making the quest for renewable energy sources one of the most important R&D topics. In this context, Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) are a major player using cheap and environmentally friendly raw materials and pro-cesses. The use of natural/bio-inspired pigments as sensitizers in DSSCs has come to be a worthwhile substitute to inorganic/organic sensitizers due to their higher cost-effectiveness and reduced environmental pollution risks. The first reported DSSC using natural anthocya-nins displayed a conversion yield of 0.56 % and paved the way for sustainable DSSCs based on renewable resources. However, when considering anthocyanins for DSSC applications, natural extracts are typically directly employed with no concern for optimization of the chem-ical structure of the compounds, resulting in low cell efficiencies.
Anchored on the established know-how on anthocyanin and flavylium chemistry of the Photochemistry group of NOVA School of Science and Technology, this thesis proposes to fill that gap. To attain so, the construction of a DSSC lab in the Chemistry Department of the said faculty, fully dedicated to the assembly and characterization of these devices was re-quired. Following this first step, the study of the impact in DSSC performance of selected var-iations in the structure and substitution pattern of a new generation of flavylium dyes was explored. In this work, several bio-inspired anthocyanin and pyranoanthocyanin derivatives were applied as dye sensitizers in DSSCs. The obtained results pointed to important structural aspects of the dyes that determine the power conversion efficiency. These included the influ-ence of the donor group, π-conjugation, structure rigidity, protonation degree and the type of anchoring unit on the adsorption of the dyes to TiO2, and on the overall performance of the devices. Only with this type of comprehensive study one can fully conclude about the potential of this family of compounds for energy applications and demonstrate the importance of fla-vylium-based dyes in the development of future bio-inspired DSSCs.
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Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Programa de financiamento
3599-PPCDT
Número da atribuição
PTDC/QEQ-QFI/1971/2014