DefinePK

Abstract

Dragon fruit or Hylocereuspolyrhizus was extracted using ethanol and distilled water (DI) for the purpose as sensitizer for Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Ultrasonic extraction method was employed to extract these dyes at temperature, time and frequency settings of 30 oC, 30 minutes and 37 Hz, respectively. Different extracting solvent from ethanol and distilled water were used to observe the absorption spectra by using UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. Fourier transforms infrared (FT-IR) were used to characterize the dye’s active components. Result of FT-IR shows that dye extracted from dragon fruit contained C=O stretching vibrations at the peak of 1667 cm-1 and at the peak at 3407 cm-1, represents the O-H stretching vibration. From the FT-IR result, the CO=OH which corresponds to the carboxylic group in Betalain’s pigment for Dragon fruit’s dye is observed. From UV-Vis absorbance, dragon fruit under distilled water treatment has the highest absorbance rate comparing to ethanol with the peak of 510 nm and bandgap of 2.26 eV while the absorption coefficient is at 2.12 k m-1. From the result obtained, it is found that dragon fruit which was treated with DI has the potential as natural sensitizer in developing a high efficiency of DSSC.