In order to test the extracted natural dyes as a sensitizer for DSSC application, the dye-sensitized solar cells were constructed using the two different natural dyes (ivy gourd fruit extract and red frangipani flower extract) as the sensitizer. Typically, the effec- tive light exposure area of the DSSCs was maintained at 1 cm2 and a liquid electrolyte composed of 0.05 M I2/0.5 M LiI/0.5 M tert- butylpyridine in methoxypropionitrile solution was used. The de- vice performances were obtained under AM 1.5 solar illumination. The detailed parameters such as short-circuit current density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF) and overall conversion
efficiency (g) for the extract of fruits of ivy gourd and flowers of
red frangipani are summarized in Table 1 and the corresponding photocurrent–voltage (J–V) curves are shown in Fig. 9. The cell based on the red frangipani flowers extract exhibited the maxi- mum efficiency of around 0.30% whereas the cell based on the ivy gourd fruits extract gave efficiency of approximately 0.08%. The inset in Fig. 9 shows a J–V curve observed under similar exper-