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Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion: Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on Ruthenium (II) Tris-Heteroleptic Compounds or Natural Dyes

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Nanoenergy

Abstract

The worldwide energy demand is growing and the development of sustainable power generation is a critical issue. Among several possibilities, dye-sensitized solar cells, DSSCs, have emerged as a promising device to meet the energy needs as an environmentally friendly alternative and investigation for academic and technological improvement of DSSCs are being carried out. One of the most important components of this device is the dye-sensitizer, since it is responsible for the sunlight harvesting and electron injection, the first steps of energy conversion. Herein, we review the developments on tris-heteroleptic ruthenium dye-sensitizers, which have been gaining much attention on the last years due to the possibility of modulating their photochemical and photophysical properties of the complex by using different ligands. Besides synthetic compounds, natural dyes have also been employed as semiconductor sensitizers for these devices and are also reviewed. These dyes can lower the device production costs since they can be promptly obtained from fruits or flowers in a very simple way. Among numerous classes of natural dyes, anthocyanins have been the most investigated ones and gained special attention in this work.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge to CNPq (577256/2008-4), FAPESP (2011/11717-8) and UFABC for financial support.

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  1. Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, Rua Santa Adélia 166, Santo André, SP, 09210-170, Brazil

    Juliana dos Santos de Souza, Leilane Oliveira Martins de Andrade & André Sarto Polo

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  1. Juliana dos Santos de Souza
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  2. Leilane Oliveira Martins de Andrade
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  3. André Sarto Polo
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  1. , Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas., Universidade Federal do ABC, Rua Santa Adélia 166, Santo André, 09210-170, Brazil

    Flavio Leandro de Souza

  2. , CCET - Depart. de Química, Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Rodovia Washington Luis, km 235, São Carlos (SP), 13565-905, Brazil

    Edson Roberto Leite

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de Souza, J.d.S., de Andrade, L.O.M., Polo, A.S. (2013). Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion: Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on Ruthenium (II) Tris-Heteroleptic Compounds or Natural Dyes. In: de Souza, F., Leite, E. (eds) Nanoenergy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31736-1_2

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