Natural Dye-Sensitized ZnO-Based DSSCs: From Materials Synthesis to Device Performance

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Saif Ur Rehman, Muhammad Saleem, Majid Niaz Akhtar, Rizwan Raza, Farah Alvi, Sohaib Hassan, Muhammad Iftikhar Khan, S. Qamar Hussain

2026 Moroccan Journal of Chemistry Vol. 14 Issue 2 Article Cited by 2

Abstract

The current research looks at the basic function, structure, performance parameters, and important parts of DSSCs. The photosensitizer is emphasized as the most important part because it creates electrons. Four main objectives were covered: synthesizing of ZnO nanoparticles NPs, preparing natural dyes, cell fabrication and studying of photovoltaic performance. ZnO nanoparticles are prepared from the sol-gel method, NPs thin films are put on the FTO glass substrate using the doctor blade method. The self-assembled natural dyes derived from beetroot and pomegranate were used. Various characterization techniques were employed to analyze the samples, such as UV-Vis, XRD, SEM, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy to investigate the optical, structural, morphological properties and functional groups. The J-V measurement system is utilized to study photovoltaic parameters of DSSCs, to assess the device's performance. The efficiencies of pomegranate and beetroot dye-based cells were observed as 1.0823 and 0.8148, respectively. While using the N719 dye, the efficiency was found to be 0.7629. These results showed that natural dyes demonstrated competitive performance compared to the commercial N719 dye under the present device configuration for the construction of DSSC's. The observed device performance is mostly attributed to effective dye-ZnO interfacial coupling through functional anchoring groups and broad visible-light absorption of natural dyes, which promote enhanced electron injection and photocurrent generation. Copyright © 2026, University of Mohammed Premier Oujda Morocco

Affiliations

Euromed University of Fes (UEMF), Fez, 30000, Morocco; Clean Energy Research Lab (CERL), Department of Physics, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 54000, Pakistan; Institute of Physics, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan; Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Universitas Negeri Malang, 65145, Indonesia; Department of Physics, University of Lahore, Lahore, 53700, Pakistan; STEM School of Engineering, RMIT University, 124 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia