Review on Metal-based Complex Dyes for Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Nowadays, fossil fuels, which are limited sources, are used to produce energy. According to energy consumption and its growing trend, it is necessary to introduce new sources of energy production. As a renewable, eco-friendly and abundant energy source, the sun has attracted the attention of the world. Solar energy is directly converted into electric energy with the help of photovoltaic devices. Dye-sensitized solar cells deliver a cheaper and dependable alternative for numerous photovoltaic devices such as mineral, thin-film, and hybrid solar cells. The performance of dye-sensitized solar cells depended on photosensitizer (Dye), electrolyte, and the semiconductor. Organometallic complex dyes are an important group of photosensitizer compounds that are suitable for use in the solar cell structure. These compounds illustrate an excellent performance in DSSCs, and an efficiency of about 17% was reported. The most important metal used in the synthesis of these compounds is ruthenium, which has shown the best efficiency. This article provides an overview of the types of organic-mineral complexes as sensitizers (dyes) in dye-sensitized solar cells.