Kenta Sueyoshi

1262997
CHEM 317 AA
6/3/15
Dye-Sensitized Soar Cells: The Grtzel Cell
In the past decade, the world has especially been worried about the energy crisis. With
the human population using 15TW a year, 85% of the energy coming from fossil fuels, and the
energy causing pollution, scientists need to find a new source of renewable energy (Balzani,
2008). Some possible sources being investigated are wind, water, wave, and solar. Solar energy
is found to be the most promising, since more than 10000 times the amount of energy humans
use hits the surface of the earth every day from the sun. However, efficiently using the large
amount of energy available is a large obstacle. One way this energy can be used is through a dyesensitized solar cell (DSSC).
A dye-sensitized solar cell is a simple cell using a dye. In the case of a Chemistry 317
class at the University of Washington, the students used pomegranate juice and blackberry
extract as their dye. In these cells, there is a layer of dye, electrolyte solution, and a titanium
dioxide layer between two plates of conductive glass. Titanium dioxide is a white substance
commonly found sunblock. This white material is a semiconductor, making it more conductive
than an insulator, but less than that of a conductor. In the case of titanium dioxide, it can absorb
and transfer energy at the UV light spectrum. However, by adding the pomegranate and
blackberry dyes, this absorption band can be shifted to the visible spectrum. The electrolyte
solution in the middle finishes the cell by allowing a flow of electrons in a circuit like way.

By using the red-ish pomegranate dye and the dark red blackberry dye, the dyes absorb
light corresponding to their color, producing a current in the solar cell. The students in Chemistry
317 found that on average, a solar cell made with the pomegranate dye produced about
0.236V/cm2, while the blackberry dye produced 0.156V/cm2. At first glance, it may seem like
the pomegranate dye does a better job at converting sunlight into electricity, but many other
factors effect the efficiency of these cells. For one, the preparation of the pomegranate cells may
have been done better than the blackberry cells. This was, after all, a classroom made solar cell,
so the product of what is made will not be perfectly the same every time. Another source of
differencing conversion efficiency could result in the concentration of the dye used to make each
cell. Since the pomegranate dye was already a solution, while the blackberry dye was an extract
from blackberries, the solution could have been different. If the concentration is different, the
amount of dye molecules inside the cell will differ. The more dye there is in a given area, the
more like can be converted, causing a higher voltage per area. Both 0.236V/cm 2 and 0.15V/cm2
are not very large values; they are a significant amount for a cell that was made in an
undergraduate lab course. Along with the inconsistent, small voltage values, each of the dye
molecules cant be reused in the solar cells, so the life span of this small cell is very short.
By using a DSSC, the sunlight can readily be converted into electricity, but means of
storing the electricity becomes a problem. One method of storage being researched is copying
plants; through photosynthesis. By using light from the sun, some water, and carbon dioxide in
air, photosynthesis would allow storage of solar energy in carbohydrates (Balzani, 2008). This is
a great idea because making one carbohydrate requires six carbon dioxides, so the more
photosynthesis happens, the less carbon dioxide there will be in the atmosphere. Another method
being researched right now to store the produced solar energy is water splitting. Since water is

made of hydrogen and oxygen, which can be burned as a fuel later, water splitting turns out to be
an effective way to store energy. However, since its not as easy of a process as it sounds,
scientists like Hong et al. have to discover the right metal to be mixed in to the reaction to help
split water (2014). Pollution-wise, water splitting is the best method of burning fuel because no
matter how much hydrogen gas you burn, only water is produced, so no pollution happens.

References:
Balzani, V.; Credi, A.; Venturi, M.; Photochemical Conversion of Solar Energy. ChemSusChem
2008, 1, 26-58.
Hong, E.; Kim D.; Kim, J. H.; Heterostructured metal sulfide (ZnS-CuS-CdS) photocatalyst for
high electron utilization in hydrogen production from solar water splitting, Journal of Industrial
and Engineering Chemistry, 2014, 20, 3869-3874.