Visible light absorption and photosensitizing characteristics of natural yellow 3 extracted from Curcuma Longa L. for Dye-Sensitized solar cell

Curcumin has known to have a long intense wavelength absorption in the visible region ranging from 420-580 nm. Because of that, curcumin is a promising material for use in dye sensitized solar cells. In this work, curcumin was extracted from turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) through a simple extraction technique using different organic solvents, i.e. acetone, methanol, and ethanol. The results from the extraction were applied as a sensitizer in dye sensitized solar cell applications. Suitable solvent for extraction that could give high efficiency in DSSC device were analysed. Characterization of the dye was performed using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and ultra violet-visible (UV-Vis), while the performance of DSSC was analysed through a simple current and potential different (I-V) curve analyser. The infrared results showed that all of the turmeric extracted dyes have the same tendency with the characteristic of curcumin. UV-Vis absorbance characteristics of the curcumin natural dye extracted using acetone, ethanol and methanol has the same tendency with plateau-like absorbance peak at around 490, 492, and 505 nm, respectively. The maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) is found to be 7.88% obtained from the solvent of ethanol whereas the PCE obtained from other natural dyes extracted using acetone and methanol are found to be low, 2.23% and 1.25%, respectively. This finding is convincing in terms of efficiency in which the value from the dye extracted using ethanol has higher efficiency than that of the commercial organic dye RK1 with a PCE of 4.02%.