Tailoring yttrium-doped TiO2 using natural dye from flowers of pomegranate in the fabrication of a dye-sensitized solar cell: an investigation

Rare earth metal-doped TiO₂ with varying concentrations of yttrium has been synthesized and is to be utilized as a photoanode in a dye-sensitized solar cell. Doped TiO₂ with an optimum concentration is soaked in the dye extracted from pomegranate flowers for sensitization to solar radiation and light photons. The structural analysis is confirmed by XRD analysis such as the tetragonal structure with the anatase phase for TiO₂ with the JCPDS card no. 21-1272, as a result, the non-deterioration of the structure. The surface morphology of TiO₂ is examined via SEM analysis, where the pure TiO₂ showed smooth and homogeneous and for 1% Y-doped TiO₂, the pores surface of TiO₂ is occupied by Yttrium uniformly throughout the surface uniformly. In FTIR spectra, we observed the peak at 2978 cm⁻¹, which confirmed the replacement of Ti⁴⁺ ions with Y³⁺ ions. FTO/Y-TiO₂/dye/(I⁻/I₃⁻)/graphite/FTO solar cell has been fabricated and subjected to J-V studies for the determination of solar cell parameters. Among the concentrations of yttrium, 1% of dopant delivered good performance of dye-sensitized solar cells due to enhanced charge transfer between the semiconductor oxide and yttrium. The solar cell with 1% of yttrium-doped TiO₂ in the photoanode provides an efficiency of 3.82% with open circuit voltage, short circuit current density and fill factor of 1.13 V, 6.2 mA/cm² and 0.54, respectively. Many potential applications in the field of renewable energy are made possible by the natural dye that is extracted from pomegranate flowers.