Abstract
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were devised with the sensitizers prepared from the leaves and flowers of
Amaranthus cruentus
. Fresh and dried leaves were employed for extracting the dye sensitizers. Acetone, ethanol, and deionized water were used as solvents for the extraction process. A sum of nine dyes was prepared. For all the extracted dyes, spectroscopic studies (UV–visible & FTIR) were performed to ensure that the dyes are suitable to be used as sensitizers for DSSC. XRD and SEM were recorded for the TiO
2
paste used. Nine DSSCs were fabricated with the extracted dyes as sensitizers, TiO
2
as semiconductor oxide, I
−
/I
3−
as electrolyte, and graphene-coated FTO as counter electrode. J-V characterization study was done for each cell showed that the cell with dye taken from the fresh leaves using acetone exhibited the highest efficiency of 0.816%. It was noted that these cells recorded higher efficiency than the previously reported works with dyes taken from Amaranthus red.
Graphical abstract