Effect of Doping Silver Nano Particle-enhanced Titanium Dioxide with Organic Luminescent Materials for Solar Cell Application

Abstract

Energy is as an important resource to support and is mainly driven by fossil fuels which are easily available and convenient to use. However, these highly treasured commodities produce exhaust gases that severely damages our environment ending to global warming. To mitigate the negative effects of the fuels, solar radiation has been exploited to generate electrical clean (green) energy using photovoltaic cells. However, solar radiation is not constant at all times of the day and also varies depending on the season of the year. This study involves the application of organic fluorescent materials to prolong solar cell output. The different luminescent materials were analysed using Fourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and then applied in the construction of a photocell. This was done by doping titanium dioxide with silver nano-particles at a ratio of 9:1 then mixed the resultant with a fluorescent material. To different samples of the doped material, varying masses of each respective luminescent material were added to the photoactive material. The mixtures were separately placed in a molding dice and compressed at 10 psi for ten minutes, and to that a known mass (0.16 g) of iodine graphite powder-potassium iodate were introduced over the photoactive layer and compressed at the same pressure to enable them bind sufficiently to form a cell. The resulting cell was then characterized under visible radiation. The cell potentials of allicin, gingerol and flourene doped were found to be 0.486, 0.363, and 0.397 V respectively and the fill factor/efficiency (FF / η) of 0.618 / 4.88 %, 0.294 /5.7 % and 0.217 / 2.81 % in the same order after the radiation was withdrawn. The luminescent materials enabled photo activity to generate electricity even after withdrawal of the natural radiation thus had promising properties for photo voltaic devices application.