Molecular engineering of low-cost, efficient, and stable photosensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells

The cost, stability, and photovoltaic performance of photosensi-tizers play a key role in the commercialization of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Herein, three novel sensitizers termed ZS10, ZS11, and ZS12 are described based on the simple chemical structure of the high-voltage dye MS5, by replacing the benzoic-acid-anchoring group with a 2-cyanobenzoic acid, phenyl-cyanoacrylic acid, and ethynyl-phenyl-cyanoacrylic-acid-anchoring group, respectively. Through engineering of the dye structure, ZS12-based devices show the best efficiency of 10.7% under standard AM1.5 G condi-tions, with an improved photocurrent of 12.26 mA cm -2 and an outstanding photovoltage of 1.18 V. Remarkably, ZS12-sensitized solar cells exhibit excellent stability, maintaining 95% of its initial PCE under full sunlight for 800 h. Moreover, the low synthesis cost of dye ZS12 (less than 100 $ g-1) developed in this work is an attrac-tive feature, facilitating the market development of DSCs based on efficient and stable sensitizers.