Suitability of N-propanoic acid spiropyrans and spirooxazines for use as sensitizing dyes in dye-sensitized solar cells

Noah M Johnson; Yuriy Y Smolin; Daniel Hagaman; Masoud Soroush; Kenneth K S Lau; Hai-Feng Ji

doi:10.1039/c6cp07853b

Suitability of N-propanoic acid spiropyrans and spirooxazines for use as sensitizing dyes in dye-sensitized solar cells

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2017 Jan 25;19(4):2981-2989. doi: 10.1039/c6cp07853b.

Authors

Noah M Johnson¹, Yuriy Y Smolin², Daniel Hagaman¹, Masoud Soroush², Kenneth K S Lau², Hai-Feng Ji¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. hj56@drexel.edu.
² Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

PMID: 28079224
DOI: 10.1039/c6cp07853b

Abstract

This work deals with the fabrication and evaluation of color-changing dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) that include N-propanoic acid-functionalized spiropyrans and spirooxazines as sensitizing dyes. We investigated the photophysical properties of these compounds in various solvents and pH conditions using UV-Vis spectroscopy, and their behavior on TiO₂ photoanode surfaces using a combination of UV-Vis and FT-IR. Their performance as sensitizing dyes for DSSCs was also analyzed. This study revealed a number of unique properties for this class of compounds that affect their performance as both photochromic compounds and DSSC sensitizers, which allow for future creation of efficient photochromic DSSCs.