Supramolecular Solar Cells

Supramolecular chemistry - chemistry of non-covalent bonds including different type of intermolecular interactions viz., ion-pairing, ion-dipole, dipole-dipole, hydrogen bonding, cation-p and Van der Waals forces. Applications based on supramolecular concepts for developing catalysts, molecular wires, rectifiers, photochemical sensors have been evolved during recent years. Mimicking natural photosynthesis to build energy harvesting devices has become important for generating energy and solar fuels that could be stored for future use. In this dissertation, supramolecular chemistry is being explored for creating light energy harvesting devices. Photosensitization of semiconductor metal oxide nanoparticles, such as titanium dioxide (TiO2) and tin oxide (SnO2,), via host-guest binding approach has been explored. In the first part, self-assembly of different porphyrin macrocyclic compounds on TiO2 layer using axial coordination approach is explored. Supramolecular dye sensitized solar cells built based on this approach exhibited Incident Photon Conversion Efficiency (IPCE) of 36% for a porphyrin-ferrocene dyad. In the second part, surface modification of SnO2 with water soluble porphyrins and phthalocyanine resulted in successful self-assembly of dimers on SnO2 surface. IPCE more than 50% from 400 - 700 nm is achieved for the supramolecular self-assembled heterodimer photocells is achieved. In summary, the axial ligation and ion-pairing method used as supramolecular tools to build photocells, exhibited highest quantum efficiency of light energy conversion with panchromatic spectral coverage. The reported findings could be applied to create interacting molecular systems for next generation of efficient solar energy harvesting devices.