Research Output
Remazol orange dye sensitized solar cell using graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide working electrode
Elemental analysis of bamboo charcoal from gigantochloa albociliata
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Publication
Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) is said as a potential solar device which offers easy, cheaper and greener materials and preparation process. However, the efficiency of this device is still an ultimate problem and challenge. In this paper, an organic Remazol orange dye was used as the DSSC dye sensitizer which prepared with different working electrodes. The different working electrodes consist of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) with Graphene Oxide (GO) and TiO2 with reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO). In order to analyze the adsorption characteristics of GO and rGO, the solution was tested using Ultraviolet-Visible-Near Infrared Spectrophotometry and the surface morphology of all mixed pastes was observed under Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscope. Then, the device performance was tested under illumination of solar cell simulator. From overall results, the efficiency for all tested devices was quite low from expectation. For this work, the performance of TiO2-rGO DSSC at 0.138% is 84.7% higher compared to the TiO2-GO DSSC which was 0.021%. This result was obtained when the working electrode and dye less exposed to the light during dye preparation process at 24 hours soaking time.
Publication
Bamboo the most abundant plant in the world has attracted a lot of interests due to their excellent potentials in many ways. The bamboo charcoal itself can be utilized in water purification, electromagnetic wave absorber, blood purification and even dye sensitized solar cell. In Malaysia, elements of bamboo charcoal from Gigantochloa Albociliata have not yet been studied. Properties of bamboo charcoal totally depend on the applied temperature and time during carbonization and activation process. In this paper, elemental analysis of carbonized bamboo charcoal at 500°C and activated bamboo charcoal at 900°C and 1100°C has been performed using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) after being prepared in two different mediums; DI water and ethanol. The results show that carbonized samples CS64 TK and CS88M show similar trend of peak in both solvents. Some peaks at 3278 cm-1 and 1637 cm-1 which attribute to O-H (stretching) and C-H (stretching) were broader for both samples in DI water compared to ethanol. In ethanol, some bands like 2886 cm-1 (C-H stretching), 1394 cm-1 (C-H bending), 1057 cm-1 (CO-O-CO stretching) and 872 cm-1 (C-H bending) were clearly observed. Similar results were obtained for activated samples; ABC900 and ABC1100. From the XRD analysis, it was confirmed that carbonized and activated bamboo charcoal were amorphous carbon. As the activation temperature increased up to 1100°C, the d0002 spacing decreased while the graphite crystallite size LC(0002) increased.