Cheap and efficient dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) can be prepared using natural dyes responding in visible region of solar spectrum. Localized surface Plasmon resonance (LSPR) plays a very important role for the improvement in the efficiency of DSSCs by using Plasmonic nanoparticles (PNPs) for exploiting the visible portion of the solar radiation by transferring the energy from dye to PNP. This energy transfer from dye to low cost semiconductor TiO 2 through PNP increases the overall photo

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... catalytic activity. In the present study, natural and synthetic dyes are prepared and the optical transmittance and absorbance of the dyes are measured in the wavelength range of 250nm to 850nm using UV-Vis spectroscopy and they are used in DSSC. Natural dyes extracted from fruits and synthetic dye based on Ru metal complex is used as sensitizers. Photo Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of the solar cells utilizing different dyes are compared. Out of the various natural dyes, beetroot and strawberry extracts based dyes show good absorbance in the visible range of electromagnetic spectrum. On the other hand synthetic dye based on Ru complex shows strong absorbance over a wide range of visible spectrum. The absorbance increases with increase in concentration of Ru in ethanol. The extracts of beetroot, strawberry and mixed fruits show a peak in absorbance spectra at 501nm, 416nm and 332nm respectively, indicating the absorption over wide range of visible spectrum. Maximum efficiency of solar cell obtained with synthetic and natural dyes are 5% and 1.5% respectively.