Acid red 88 dye doped polyaniline framed by soft template method: A potential candidate for dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

The metal-like band structure and the tripping transfer of electrons between bipolarons and polarons found in polyaniline make it for elevated scientific validity. Through a soft template in situ oriented oxidative polymerization, self-assembled nano tubular structures of Acid red (AR88) dye-doped Polyaniline in the presence of hydrochloric acid medium (AR88/PAni/HCl) were prepared and characterized well using different analytical tools. The AR88 (5x10-4 M) doped PAni prepared in the presence of 1 M HCl shows higher conductivity (2.2679 Scm−1) and seized its eminent electrical properties. The presence of sulfonic acid group-containing AR88 provides a better environment to give higher conductivity than the PAni-HCl. Due to its better optical transparency, the as-synthesized samples were used for photovoltaic applications. The AR88/PAni/HCl was used as a photosensitizer in dye-sensitized solar cells which shows photoconversion efficiency of around 1.58 %.

Keywords

• AR88/PAni/HCl
• Sensitizer
• Conductivity
• DSSC
• Efficiency
• IPCE