Potential use of wastewater from textile industry as material for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC)

Abstract

A study on determining the possibility of applying effluent from textile industry in the fabrication of dye sensitized solar cell as the dye sensitizer components had been carried out. The effluent sample obtained from one of the textile industry in Malaysia has been included in this study. Determination of the pH, elemental cation contents and functional groups in textile effluent sample was firstly identified by using pH meter, Inductive Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) instrument respectively. The performance of the effluent sample as dye sensitizer was mainly analyzed based on the light absorption test and the measurement of the fabricated dye sensitized solar cell. Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer (UV/Vis) was used for the light absorption test while multimeter and semiconductor parameter analyzer were used for the measurement for the performance of the fabricated textile effluent dye sensitized solar cell. The textile effluent in acidic pH 4 had been used in fabrication of the solar cell. The textile effluent was tend to absorb light that at light spectrum below 300 nm which in the ultraviolet region. The textile effluent dye sensitized solar cell was measured and generating approximately 0.5 V and 0.3 V under the exposure of sunlight and fluorescent lamp respectively.