Analysis and characterization of dithizone and pyrocatechol violet sensitized ZnO/CdS/UiO-66 photoanode based bulk heterojunction solar cells

A comparative study of ZnO//CdS/UIO-66 nanostructured based photoanode materials using two organic dyes as sensitizers in the presence of P3HT as solid state electrolyte has been reported here, UV–visible spectrum showed the rise of a new optical band after the coupling of all these three semiconductors which resulted in boosting optical absorption. Moreover, the band gap has been efficiently tuned from 3.12 eV for pure ZnO to 2.78 eV for ZnO/CdS/UIO-66. The co-existence of the hexagonal phases of CdS, ZnO, and UIO-66 was revealed by XRD examination. The coupling of various nanostructures in ZnO/CdS/UIO-66 showed a significant improvement on different parameters of fabricated devices. With a dithizone-sensitized ZnO/CdS/UIO-66 (Zr-MOF), the Jsc was 10.45 mA/cm2, Voc was 0.46 V, and overall efficiency was 1.91 %. The photoanode material, however, produced a Jsc value of 12.55 mA/cm2, a Voc of 0.50 V, and an overall efficiency of 2.94 % when it was sensitised with pyrocatechol violet.