Dye sensitized solar cell based on TiO 2 nanoparticles and chlorophyll from Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb. leaves Rahul Zanan 1 • Kalpana Pawar 2 • Altafhusain Nadaf 1 • Habib M. Pathan 2 Received: 30 May 2016 / Accepted: 1 August 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a low-cost photo electrochemical solar cell, that belongs to third generation solar cells and known for its easy fabrication procedures. Its working is based on the interfacial kinetics between a photo-sensitized nanocryastalline anode and an electrolyte, with a counter electrode to complete the cell configuration. A lot of research has been conducted due to their interesting potential for low-cost, lightweight, with reasonably good photovoltaic efficiency. Present work reports the dye sensitized solar cells using TiO 2 nanopar- ticles with Pandanus amaryllifolius chlorophyll as an absorber. P. amaryllifolius leaves are rich in chlorophyll and widely used as natural colorant to impart deep green colour to food products. Moreover, the leaves are rich in basmati aroma volatiles. In the present investigation, chlorophyll pigment was extracted from P. amaryllifolius leaves and nanocrystalline Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) film was prepared by doctor blade method. The Titania films were immersed overnight in the chlorophyll extract for sensitization. An electrolyte solution consisting of Polyio- dide was injected into the cell before sealing it. Pt coated FTO was used as counter electrode to assemble the cell configuration before it was characterized for its photo- voltaic performance. The photoelectrochemical perfor- mance of the fabricated DSSC based on this dye showed 0.14 mA/cm 2 short circuit current (J SC ) and 0.125 V open circuit voltage (V OC ). 1 Introduction Development of alternative sources of energy has already become the most important preoccupation of all policy makers of the world, because the conventional energy resources would last only for a definite period of time. Solar energy is available in abundance in majority part of the world and it has become an economically viable and environmentally preferable alternative to fossil fuels. Hence, world is being considered as a feasible energy option. Exploration of solar energy would be the most environmental friendly renewable resource of energy and can convert solar light into various forms of energy. For the first time, O’Reagan and Gra¨tzel [1] developed Dye Sen- sitized Solar Cell (DSSC) for effective utilization of solar energy. DSSC is an attractive device because of its con- siderable low cost of production, no greenhouse gas emission, eco-friendliness and sustainability [2, 3] for the conversion of solar light into electrical energy and con- sidered third generation of photovoltaic devices for the conversion of visible light into electrical energy [4]. The DSSC principal is similar to the natural photosyn- thesis where in, molecular absorber dye is anchored on wide band gap semiconductor matrix and coated on con- ducting substrate that initiates energy conversion process. Under illumination of photo anode in the visible range, the excited dye molecule injects electrons into the conduction band of the semiconductor which are rapidly shuttled to the external circuit to the counter electrode producing electric current and subsequently original state of the dye is restored by electron donation from the redox electrolyte. Researchers are constructing fast electron transport semi- conductor photoanodes for the optimization of the Plat- inum (Pt) counter electrode. Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ), Zinc oxide (ZnO), Tin dioxide (SnO 2 ) and Niobium pentoxide & Altafhusain Nadaf abnadaf@unipune.ac.in 1 Department of Botany, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411 007, India 2 Advanced Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411 007, India 123 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron DOI 10.1007/s10854-016-5485-2