International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER) www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.5, Sep.-Oct. 2012 pp-3597-3601 ISSN: 2249-6645 www.ijmer.com 3597 | Page Thirumal mamidi 1 , Shobhan Babu Mandha 2 , Abhishek mishra 3 1,2 Asst.Professor Dept. Mechanical Engineering M.B.E.Society’s Collage Of Engg Ambajogai-431517. 3 Abhishek mishra Dept. Mechanical Engineering VNIT-Nagpur. Abstract - the need of energy is the basic need for any civilization. Through the years we have been using various kinds of energy sources to fulfill energy requirement. The search for a clean energy source, producing electricity at low production cost is always on. Solar energy is one of the best known energy options available to us. Even if we are able to convert a small fraction of solar energy falling on earth’s surface into electricity, then the whole problem related to energy crisis would be resolved. But it has a disadvantage that initial cost for the equipment to harness the energy is very high. That is why it is not very popular in the market. But there is a technology which is making its cost cheaper. This technology is known as “DSSC”. Which stands for, dye sensitized solar cell. DSSC is a new class of solar cell that belongs to the group of thin film solar cells. This solar cell partly by passes the photosynthesis reaction and makes a shortcut conversion of sunlight into electrical current. The inner part of this solar cell consists of semiconductor material. And in between semiconductor molecules, there are dye molecules, similar to chlorophyll in plants. Sunlight is absorbed by them. It makes dye electrons to move to a higher energy level. Then they become mobile and move through semiconductor circuit. This results in the flow of electricity. This cell was developed by Professor “Michael Gratzel”. Keywords: Solar energy, Thin film solar cell, DSSC, TiO2, Dye, Pyranometer, Overall conversion efficiency, Semiconductor layer thickness and Silicon cell. I. Introduction Solar cells have gone through a number of years and they have gone through a number of phases. Their development can be described according to their construction principles. So we can call them solar cells of different generations. In the first generation of solar cells silicon with a large area and in a single crystal of p-n junction diode was used. This is made from two doped crystals. One is doped with n type material having extra electrons. Other crystal is doped with p type impurities lacking some electrons. When both crystals are placed in contact with each other electrons from n type material starts flowing towards p type material. Eventually enough electrons will flow across the junction to equalize the Fermi level of the two regions. This result in a region at the interface called p-n junction. Where charge carriers are depleted or accumulated on each side of junction. In Silicon the transfer of electrons produces a potential barrier of 0.6 to 0.7V. Right now these solar cells accounts for approximately 86% of the total solar market. In Silicon solar cells sunlight can provide enough energy to the electrons to move them from valence band to conduction band. This process is known as photo excitation. When an external load is applied these electrons lose their energy while flowing through external circuit. Then they again come back to the n side and recombine with the holes left by them. In this way sunlight creates electrical current. In any semiconductor band gap means the electron with that much energy or higher energy than band gap will contribute to produce electricity. In case of silicon semiconductor they can absorb most of the visible range light from red to violet. But the higher energy electrons at the blue, violet end have the more energy than required so it is wasted. Also there is one more issue that to absorb a good amount of photon energy we have to make n layer thick. This increases material cost and makes the construction complex. This creates one more problem that any electron which is on conduction band can recombine it with a hole on the n region before reaching the p-n junction. This puts an upper limit on the efficiency of Silicon solar cells. However the biggest problem with these cells has been the cost. Silicon processing is costly and the thick layer of Silicon increases its cost more. So we need a different form of solar energy utilization device which would convert solar energy into electricity but at economical price. By the years of observations and research we have got following graph which compares all kind of first generation solar cells efficiencies. We have seen three kinds of silicon solar cells. All of them have different characteristics. The three kinds of silicon cells manufactured during this time were as following: 1. Single crystal silicon cell 2. Multi crystalline silicon cell 3. Thick silicon film A.DSSC: - This name DSSC stands for “dye sensitized solar cells". A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a solar cell that belongs to the group of thin film solar cells. A thin film solar cell works on the principle of photosynthesis in plants. This cell was developed by the scientist known as Michael Gratzel and Brian O Regan at the Ecole Polytechnique Federalede Lausanne in 1991. That’s why the cell is known as GRATZEL’S solar cell also. He used mostly artificial dyes. But some organic dyes were also tried by him. The basic idea behind its development was, that every day we can see the most fascinating “solar cells”, for example green spinach, algae, and green leaves on trees, converting sunlight by means of photosynthesis into energy containing nutrients like sugar, which are important for life. Why couldn’t we use dyes either organic or synthetic dyes with a little bit of sunlight to generate electricity. II. Manufacturing Steps Of Dssc A. Negative Electrode: For the making of negative electrode we need to identify first the conducting side of the glass. This has been made conductive by the help of coating layer of Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO). The coating is done only on one side of the glass so we use multimeter to find out the conducting side of the glass. Then we have to put a thin layer of titanium do oxide on the conducting side. For this we use pipette to put few drops of TIO2 on the glass surface. And then we use microscope slider glass to spread it through the whole glass surface. It need to be done very carefully then only the result will be good. Otherwise we would not get the required output. After this we dry the layer by the help of Hair Dryer operating in cool mode or we can dry it naturally in room condition. Study and Analysis of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells