Fluorous Molecules for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

JAVIER DURANTINI ; GABRIELA MARZARI; MIGUEL GERVALDO; LUIS OTERO; GIANLUCA POZZI; FERNANDO FUNGO

La Falda-Córdoba

Congreso; XII Encuentro "Superficies y Materiales Nanoestructurados 2012"; 2012

XII Encuentro "Superficies y Materiales Nanoestructurados 2012"

Fluorous Molecules for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Javier Durantini,a Gabriela Marzari,a Miguel Gervaldo,a Luis Otero,a Gianluca Pozzib and Fernando Fungoa a) Departamento de Química, Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Agencia Postal 3 (5800), Río Cuarto, Argentina. b) Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie Molecolari del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, ISTM-CNR, via Golgi 19, 20133 Milano, Italy. ffungo@exa.unrc.edu.ar The continuous growth of energy demand around the world, and the environment pollution resulting in global warming have led to a greater focus on research in renewable energy sources over the past decades. Solar energy is available profusely in most of the world?s regions and it can be used for direct electricity production by means of photovoltaic and photo-electrochemical cells. In this frame Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) are currently the most efficient and stable excitonic photocells, , offering several advantages over traditional silicon-based devices, as simplicity in fabrication and reduction in production costs. The design of suitable photosensitizers remains one of the most important research topics in DSSCs regards for improving their performance. As a part of our ongoing research program on the application of materials in solar cells, we here report the synthesis and photophysical and electrochemical characterization of a series of simple D--A dyes with fluorene core holding fluorophilic perfluoro-tert-butyl substituents in different positions, as well as their behavior as photosensitizers in DSSCs. It will be shown that the fluorous substitution pattern affects the photosensitizers performance, leading to improved power conversion efficiencies with respect to structurally related non-fluorous dyes.