Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, 2-1 Gakuen, Sanda, Hyogo 669-1337, Japan.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2010 Apr 15;25(8):1970-6. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2010.01.015. Epub 2010 Jan 25.
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are similar to natural photosynthesis in the initial processes involving in light-harvesting and charge separation. In order to mimic those natural photosynthetic systems mainly containing multiple pigments, six different chlorophyllous sensitizers have been isolated from natural photosynthetic organism or synthesized based on natural photosynthetic precursors, and used for fabricating DSSCs. These dye sensitizers can be placed into three classes, i.e., a-type, b-type, or c-type, based on the structural similarity to their analogs of the natural photosynthesis pigments chlorophylls a, b, and c. We succeeded in demonstrating homogeneous co-sensitization among these analogues when these were present together on mesoporous TiO2 films, and we measured the photovoltaic performance of the resulting chlorophyll-sensitized solar cells. Significantly enhanced power-conversion efficiencies (eta) were achieved with DSSCs based on co-sensitization of a chlorophyll a derivative with a chlorophyll b or c derivative. A highest power-conversion efficiency of up to 5.4% has been obtained. These results suggest that it is possible to apply multiple pigments and the energy transfer mechanism from natural photosynthetic systems in fabricating high-efficiency DSSCs.
染料敏化太阳能电池（DSSC）在光捕获和电荷分离等初始过程中类似于自然光合作用。为了模拟那些主要包含多种色素的天然光合作用系统，我们已经从天然光合作用生物中分离出了六种不同的叶绿素敏化剂，或者基于天然光合作用前体合成了这些敏化剂，并将其用于制备 DSSC。这些染料敏化剂可以根据其与天然光合作用色素叶绿素 a、b 和 c 的类似物的结构相似性分为 a 型、b 型或 c 型。当这些类似物同时存在于介孔 TiO2 薄膜上时，我们成功地证明了它们之间的均匀共敏化，并且我们测量了所得叶绿素敏化太阳能电池的光伏性能。基于叶绿素 a 衍生物与叶绿素 b 或 c 衍生物的共敏化，基于 DSSC 的功率转换效率（eta）得到了显著提高。最高的功率转换效率达到了 5.4%。这些结果表明，在制备高效 DSSC 时，可以应用多种色素和天然光合作用系统中的能量转移机制。
