Colour gamut analysis of low‐cost dye‐sensitised solar cells using natural dyes

Abstract

Due to the increasing effects of greenhouse gases and environmental pollution, the need for new clean energies like solar energy attracts much attention. Although the characteristics and the efficiency of green photovoltaic devices have been researched, the colour gamut achievable from those devices has not been studied. This study investigates the colour gamut of low‐cost dye‐sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). To do this, 14 natural dye extracts were obtained from herbal resources including dragon fruit, blueberry, mango, radish, yellow rose, red cabbage, sour pomegranate, beetroot, olive, green cabbage pepper, eggplant, parsley, bramble and cherry, and employed as photosensitiser in solar cells. Then, the colorimetric attributes of the photosensitisers were studied in three‐dimensional (3D)‐colour space, that is, CIELab, CIELCH and CIE1931 chromaticity diagram. Additionally, the convex hull method was employed to determine the colour gamut boundary and the corresponding colour gamut volume. Results showed that the majority of samples benefited from approximately 3°–82° of hue angle in a*b* diagram of CIELab colour space and showed the yellowish to reddish tint effects. In CIELCH colour order system, cherry and parsley showed the lowest and highest lightness attributes while the chroma property of samples varied from minimum 1.2 for eggplant to maximum 60.2 for the dragon fruit. Moreover, the results of using the convex hull method showed the volume of 7.73 × 104 that is bounded by the colour gamut of 3D colour points over the CIELab colour space.