Molecular Engineering of Zinc-Porphyrin Sensitisers for p-Type Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells

Jianfeng Lu; Zonghao Liu; Narendra Pai; Liangcong Jiang; Udo Bach; Alexandr N Simonov; Yi-Bing Cheng; Leone Spiccia

doi:10.1002/cplu.201800104

Molecular Engineering of Zinc-Porphyrin Sensitisers for p-Type Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells

Chempluschem. 2018 Jul;83(7):711-720. doi: 10.1002/cplu.201800104. Epub 2018 May 2.

Authors

Jianfeng Lu¹, Zonghao Liu², Narendra Pai¹, Liangcong Jiang³, Udo Bach^{4

5

6}, Alexandr N Simonov^{1

7}, Yi-Bing Cheng^{3

6

8}, Leone Spiccia¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
² School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
⁵ CSIRO, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
⁶ ARC Centre of Excellence for Exciton Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
⁷ ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China.

PMID: 31950629
DOI: 10.1002/cplu.201800104

Abstract

Design of novel efficient light-harvesters for p-type dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs) is indispensable for further advances in this photovoltaic technology. Herein, a novel D-π-A (D=donor, π=π-conjugated linker, A=acceptor) sensitiser, ZnP1, featuring an electron acceptor, perylenemonoimide (PMI), connected to an electron donor, di(p-carboxyphenyl)amine (DCPA), through fluorene and a zinc(II) porphyrin with alkyl chains as a π-conjugated bridge is introduced. Spectroscopic and electrochemical characterisation of this dye along with a newly synthesised PMI-free reference dye ZnP0 has been undertaken to demonstrate strong electron coupling between the DCPA donor and PMI acceptor subunits through the porphyrin ring in ZnP1, which redshifts the light absorption onset to the near-IR region. When integrated into p-DSSCs based on a mesoporous nickel(II) oxide semiconductor electrode and a tris(acetylacetonato) iron(III/II) redox mediator, ZnP1 exhibits an onset of the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency at 800 nm and a power conversion efficiency of up to 0.92 % under simulated 100 mW cm^-2 AM 1.5 G irradiation. This is the highest efficiency of the porphyrin-based p-DSSCs hitherto reported.

Keywords: donor-acceptor; dye-sensitised solar cell; p-type; porphyrin; sensitiser.

Abstract

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