Rose Bengal sensitized niobium pentaoxide photoanode for dye sensitized solar cell application

The present work deals with the study of Nb2O5 photoanode with low cost rose Bengal dye for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) application. Chemical route was used for preparation of nano-crystalline niobium pentaoxide (Nb2O5) and doctor blade method was employed for deposition of Nb2O5 films. The morphological and structural analysis of Nb2O5 photoanodes were carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) respectively. The SEM micrograph shows spherical granular grains with porous structure useful for dye adsorption. The XRD analysis shows the formation of pure orthorhombic phase of Nb2O5. The band gap value for Nb2O5 photoanode was calculated as 3.2 eV using diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). As an alternative to conventional ruthenium dye, we used rose Bengal (4, 5, 6, 7-tetrachloro- 20, 40, 50, 70 tetra-iodo-fluorescein) dye, which acts as a photo-sensitizer for DSSCs. The absorbance spectra of the rose Bengal dye was investigated by UV-visible spectrophotometer. The cell shows open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit photocurrent (Jsc) and fill factor around 0.53V, 0.13mA /cm2 and 22% respectively.