Tahmineh Jalali

pigments are one of the essential components of dye-sensitized solar cells that the major proportion of DSSCs fabrication cost is attributed to them. In this work, to increase the performance/cost ratio of DSSCs, we used regional plant of Suaeda aegyptiaca as a sensitizer. Based on the results, the microwave-assisted method and pure ethanol have the higher extraction efficiency than conventional extraction and water, respectively. Besides, the extracted pigment from Suaeda aegyptiaca was characterized using UV-vis spectrophotometer, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, cyclic voltammetry, and circular dichroism techniques. Based on the photovoltaic results, the microwave-assisted Sua-DSSC had the energy conversion efficiency of 1.168%. This excellent efficiency could be attributed to the high concentration, high optical activity, the small band gap and appropriate LUMO energy level of the extracted pigments from Suaeda aegyptiaca. Moreover, due to the presence of proper functional groups in its chemical structure, an effective bond between the pigment and TiO2 surface could be achieved ,and hence improving the conversion efficiency of DSSC.