Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328

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Materials Science for Energy Technologies

CHINESE ROOTS
GLOBAL IMPACT
journal homepage: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/materials-science-for-energy-technologies

Fabrication, device performance, and MPPT for flexible dye-sensitized

solar panel based on gel-polymer phthaloylchitosan based electrolyte
and nanocluster CoS2 counter electrode
Saradh Prasad a,b, D. Devaraj c,⇑, Rajender Boddula d, Sunitha Salla e, Mohamad Saleh AlSalhi a,b,⇑
a
Research Chair on Laser Diagnosis of Cancers, Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, King Saud University, 11451 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
b
Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, King Saud University, 11451 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
c
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, School of Electronics and Electrical Technology (SEET), Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education (KARE), Krishnankoil,
Virudhunagar 626126, Tamil Nadu, India
d
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchy Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience
and Technology, Beijing 100190, People’s Republic of China
e
Department of Chemistry, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology (Deemed to be University), Chennai 600119, Tamil Nadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work, we fabricated solar cells and panel using net-like CoS2 nanostructure as Counter Electrode
Received 24 November 2018 (CE) spray coated on Ag grid embedded on flexible plastic Poly-Ethylene Terephthalate (PET) substrate.
Revised 21 February 2019 The spray coated CoS2 thin film revealed its form to be a hierarchical net-like nano-structure. The
Accepted 26 February 2019
TiO2:N3 dye and phthaloylchitosan-based gel-polymer electrolyte as the redox electrolyte layers of
Available online 16 March 2019
Flexible Organic Solar Panel (FOSP) was fabricated using screen printing technique. Then both segments
were sandwiched to form flexible solar panel. The fabricated solar cell showed a Power Conversion
Keywords:
Efficiency (PCE or g) of 7.09% with a fill factor (FF) of 0.64, Jsc of 17.51 mA/cm2, and an open circuit volt-
Duty-cycle derivative of output voltage
Spheroids agglomerated nanocluster CoS2
age (Voc) of 0.65 V, which was comparable to that of Platinum (Pt) CE (g = 7.82%). Similarly, for FOSP
CE showed PCE of 7.04%, FF of 0.62, Isc of 67 mA and Voc of 60 V. The FOSP was connected to buck converter
A Pt-free counter electrode with Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) using a modified Fractional Open Circuit Voltage (FOCV)
Flexible DSSC combined with Duty-cycle Derivative of Output Voltage (DDOV) algorithms, Buck Boost converter
Dye-sensitized solar cells, and panel (BBC) works from 60 to 5.8 V in buck mode, the output is connected to a battery. For voltages less than
Gel-polymer electrolyte 8 V the power converter works in boost mode (up to 3.8 V), a micropower harvester would be very useful
many handheld gadgets.
Ó 2019 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction The organic photovoltaic (OPVs) especially DSSC and polymer

At present the silicon solar panels were being installed more
and more on top of the roofs due to engorgements from govern-
ments across the world [1–5], otherwise, it would be costlier due
to High manufacturing cost. The industry is dominated by
Silicon-based solar cells, which are suitable for installation in large,
stationary, and flat surfaces [6–8]. The requirement for grid-
connected solar PVs of any type is tremendously growing. Apart
from few DSSC, due to low PCE of non-silicon based solar cells,
are not made their presence in the market [9–12].
⇑ Corresponding authors at: Research Chair on Laser Diagnosis of Cancers,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, King Saud University,
11451 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (M.S. AlSalhi).
E-mail addresses: srajendra@ksu.edu.sa (S. Prasad), deva230@yahoo.com
(D. Devaraj), malsalhy@gmail.com (M.S. AlSalhi).
solar cells (PSC) were a promising alternative for Silicone-based
solar cells with unique advantages such as low cost, ease of man-
ufacturing, high surface to weight ratio, and flexibility [13–16].
OPVs [including Perovskite, DSSC and Polymer Solar cells (PSC)]
are evolving to breaking 10% efficiency barrier [17]. Besides, they
have the potential for a high light-to-energy conversion efficiency
[10] and the Shockley-Quiesser limit has been calculated to be 23%
for single layers PVs [18].
Perovskite solar cells became the best solar cell research field
due its simple fabrication process and high efficiency. The
ground-breaking work was done by Henry Snaith et al. at Oxford
University, UK [19]. And the record efficiency for such solar cells
was 22.7% reported by J. Chen et al. [20]. But these solar cells have
poor stability and exceedingly toxic.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mset.2019.02.004
2589-2991/Ó 2019 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
320 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328
Polymer solar cell was first reported by C. W. Tang et al. in 1991,
it had only 1% PCE [21]. But the fabrication was very simple (like
spin coating). The researcher improved the stability and efficiency.
The most promising designs are based on a combination of
electron-donating and electron-accepting molecular materials, so
as to emulate p–n heterojunctions. One class of particular interest
is the donor–acceptor heterojunction formed from a blend of a
conjugated polymer with a fullerene derivative [22,23]. An exam-
ple of promising organic solar cells, is that based on poly (2-meth
oxy-5-(20-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene and [6,6]-
phenyl C60 butyric acid methyl ester heterojunction (MEH-PPV/
PCBM), which has been prepared and experimentally studied ear-
lier. The cell showed 2.9% PCE under 100 mW/cm2 illumination
intensities as reported by Jankovic et. al. [24]. N. S. Sariciftci et al.
reported lower conversion efficiency for similar cells based on
MEH-PPV and polymers with substituents containing C60 moieties
[25]. Another CP based polymer BEHP-co-MEH-PPV doped with
ZnO showed that nanoparticle could improve the intrinsic photon
to electron conversation efficiency (IPEC), and reported an effi-
ciency of 6.1% [26]. A record efficiency over 14% was reported by
S. Zhang et al. (2018) [27].
M. Gratzel et al. inspired by photosynthesis process designed
and demonstrated DSSC in 1991 at EPFL, Switzerland. From then
on, it evolved to be a noticeable field of research, with many
ground breaking works [28]. Recently (in 2016), K. Kakiage et al.
achieved a world record breaking efficiency of 14.3% by using
two dyes alkoxysilyl-anchor dye of ADEKA-1 and a carboxy-
anchor organic dye of LEG4 together [29]. Other strategies such
as choosing different architectures and electrodes were also being
investigated [30].
The Pt base CE were the one of expensive part of any DSSC,
hence many alternative nanomaterials were investigated as CEs
in DSSC, super capacitors and hydrogen evolution [31–34]. A
Ni3N based electrode was used to fabricate solar cells and super-
capacitor was attempted. Similar effort was carried out to use
CoS2 replacing Pt as CE, due to its nano structure and superior pho-
tocatylici activity the performance of the solar cells was as good as
Pt based CE [35]. DSSC were best known for their potential as low
cost alternative solar cells. The cost of DSSC could be further
reduced by using PET substrate and CoS2 CE instead of quartz glass
substrate and Pt based CE. In the same work a polymer baser elec-
trolyte was used to improve the life time of the DSSC [36].
When compared with the research and development efforts for
Si-based PV over 50 years, OPV technology is still a toddler. Still a
lot of research work needed to achieve superior levels of perfor-
mances, which would synergies rest of the advantage of OPVs.
The most important advantage of was that DSSC under diffused
light conditions outperforms conventional solar cells, within tem-
perature less than 50 °C. Even with low efficiencies, OPV offers
many potential advantages that it can be used in any rooftops,
sun shield, building side walls of any contours and shapes. It can
be fabricated at the site of installation avoiding many logistic prob-
lems. It is very easy to install and maintain.
At the same time, an affordable, off-grid energy harvester with
efficient charging capabilities is need of the hour and demand
grows with every increasing spectrum innovative wearables and
portable devices, such as navigational equipment, field research
device, smartphones and gadgets. Off-grid medical diagnostic
equipment is becoming very vital for remote field trips [37,38].
Currently marketed portable energy harvesters are expensive,
rigid, bulky, and heavy to carry around. Most of them use tradi-
tional Si-based solar cells (Rigid or semi-flexible) with a simple
buck (step down) voltage converter to charge a battery or supply
a load.
These type energy harvesters suffer substantial power loss due
to underutilization power at Maximum Power Point (MPP) of the
solar panel. The loss occurs due to the impedance mismatch
between the solar panel and the load (or charger). At any given
point of time these converters either work above or below MPP.
Consequently, the battery attached to this system suffers prema-
ture failure. There are many methods to implement the MPPT into
the system, such as perturb and Observe (P&O) [38], Hill climbing
[39], Fractional open circuit voltage (FOCV) [40], Incremental Con-
ductance (IC) [41], Fuzz logic [42], artificial-intelligence (AI) [43].
There are suitable for large solar power generators, at least few
kW would justify the power loss in sensor and control circuit.
But the power available with these micropower generators (ther-
moelectric, OPV, and piezoelectric) were relatively low, so it is
not desirable to have many sensors, which would consume part
of power generated. Hence, it is desirable to design a low cost, FOSP
and a power converter with minimal sensors and circuit.
In this work, a flexible solar cell based on PET substrate with Ag
comb was coated with CoS2 as CE, phthaloychitosan-based gel-
polymer electrolyte as the redox electrolyte. Using doctor blade
method, a layer TiO2 was pasted on ITO coated PET substrate. N3
dye was drop coated on TiO2. These two layers were sandwiched
to form the solar cells. These fabricated solar cells had 7.3%, and
connected them in serial to produce a solar panel, with an open cir-
cuit voltage of 45 V and a short circuit current of 80 mA. With a fill
factor of 0.64, and could supply a maximum power of 2200 mW,
when operated at MPP. The power available in this panel was
extracted using a buck-boost converter operated in MPPT method
based Fractional open circuit voltage to find the approximate point
of P mpp . To find MPP duty cycle derivative of output and input volt-
age DDOV & DDIV was used and Pulse width modulation (PWM)
ratio was calculated and controlled by a PIC16F877A (mC). The out-
put was fed to a battery (or load). The input and output voltages
was measured and displayed in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
(2x16 characters). The performance of the BBC was measured using
storage oscilloscope. This could be first work combines material
science design and electronics hardware development for a low
cost flexible solar panel, that could be designed using CoS2. And
the maximum power could be execrated efficiently using combina-
tion of FOVC and DDOV algorithm. A system was implemented
using a mC, an embedded hardware and a configurable buck-
boost converter.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Flexible substrate coated with ITO and Silver was purchased
from KINTEC, Hong Kong, China. Electronic components like
PIC16F877A, inductor, resistor and capacitors were purchased from
Farnell element14, Bengaluru, India. Encapsulation Epoxy was
acquired from Ossila, Sheffield, UK. Phthalic anhydride and chi-
tosan were procured from Merck (Darmstadt, Germany). Sigma
Aldrich (St Louis, MO, USA) was the provider of N3 dye [cis-diiso
thiocyanato-bis(2,20 -bipyridyl-4,40 -dicarboxylic acid) ruthenium
(II)], lithium perchlorate (LiClO4), and Lithium iodide (LiI). Supelco
(Bellefonte, PA, USA) Degussa (Essen, Germany) provided the Car-
bowax. TiO2 nanoparticles (P25 and P90) was obtained from
Supelco (Bellefonte, PA, USA). Ammonia solution (NH4OH),
thiourea (CH2CSHCH2), absolute ethanol, cobalt (II) chloride hex-
ahydrate (CoCl26H2O), iodine (I2) and Acetonitrile, were purchased
from SDFCL (Maharashtra, India).
2.2. Hydrothermal preparation of the CoS2 nanostructure
Usually, deionized water (at 20 °C, room temperature) was used
to dissolve 0.1 g poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP; K30), next sodium
 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328 321

citrate (0.4 mmol) added with 0.2 mmol of CoCl26H2O under vig-
orous stirring. And another 5 mL of deionized water was used to
dissolve 0.5 mmol thiourea (CH2CSHCH2). Then to the CoCl2 solu-
tion under strong magnetic stirring drop by drop the TAA solution
was added. Lastly, the resulting product mixture was transported
into a 15 mL Teflon-lined stainless-steel autoclave and heated at
433 k for 3 h. Subsequently the autoclave was cooled to room tem-
perature, the resulting black products were washed several times
with absolute ethanol and distilled water, and dried under vacuum
at 60 °C for 4 h [44].

2.3. XRD studies

The Hydrothermally synthesized CoS2 was coated on ITO PET

substrate and XRD was taken and shown in Fig. 1. Peaks of diffrac-
tion could be seen (descending order) at 57.8°, 42.6°, 37.6°, and
33.2° which correspond to the (3 1 1), (2 1 1), (2 1 0), and (2 0 0)
diffraction planes of cubic CoS2. The experimental diffraction peaks
match the standard cubic CoS2 data (PDF card No. 01-077-7559).
The other major diffraction peaks are all related to the pure ITO
conducting glass substrate, which are in agreement with our previ-
(a)
ous report.

2.4. Morphology and elemental studies

Fig. 2.a depicted morphological and structural details of as-

prepared CoS2 nanoparticles, examined using by TEM. The TEM
image reviled that CoS2 nanoparticles where shaped as aggregated
spheroids agglomerated to form a cluster like legs. The average size
of spheroid was 350 nm, the average length of leg was 560 nm and
the clusters had an average dimension of 1.7  1.4 mm
(Length  berth). The also showed the hallow porous with diame-
ter 130 nm (average). (Fig. 3b) shows the microscopic texture of
CoS2 via HRSEM image, while conforming aggregated spheroids,
cluster and porousness, it also shows that in microscopic scale
the adhesion of cluster particles was very good. It also shows a sur-
face contained large number of aggregated irregular clusters parti-
cles of aggregated spheroid. The surface was well-organized
morphological which was expected to support an efficient charge
transport process at the interface between CE surface to gel-
(b)
polymer redox electrolyte in DSSCs. Also, the SEM analysis shown
that Ag combs on PET substrate was compatible with spray coated
CoS2 layers. Greater adhesion between Ag combs and the CoS2

(c)
Fig. 2. The (a) TEM (b) SEM and (c) EDS measurement of CoS2 nanoparticles.

materials is important parameter for determining the endurance

and PCE of the assembled DSSCs. Fig. 3b show the EDS elemental
Fig. 1. XRD pattern of the as-deposited CoS2 film. analysis of hydrothermally synthesis and spray coated CoS2 thin
322 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328

Fig. 3a. Flow chart of the DSSC fabrication.

20 8
18 7
16
6

Power (mW)
14
J (mA/cm )
2

12 5
10 4
8 3
6
2
4
2 1
0 0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Voltage (V)
Fig. 3b. The device Structure of flexible DSSC. Fig. 4. The IV characteristics of flexible DSSC.

film, it shows peaks of Ag, Co and S elements. The obtained result
from EDS analysis confirmed the formation of CoS2 on the PET sub-
strate (Figs. 4 and 5).
2.5. Preparation of the phthaloylchitosan-based gel-polymer
electrolyte
The preparation of phthaloylchitosan-based gel-polymer elec-
trolyte was prepared according to previous studies with slight
alterations. In short, a fixed 37.8 wt% ethylene carbonate, 22.7 wt
% tetrapropylammonium iodide, 31.5 wt% dimethylformamide,
5.0 wt% phthaloylchitosan, and 1.3 wt% poly(ethylene oxide)
(PEO, Mw 5,000,000) was placed in a concealed container and
magnetically stirred for 2 h at a temperature of 80 °C. Heating
would be stopped, once a homogeneous gel was formed, and then
mixture was allowed to cool in room conditions. Then, 1.7 wt%
iodine was added and stirred to obtain a homogeneous
phthaloylchitosan-based gel-polymer electrolyte [36].
2.6. Assembly of the DS solar cells and solar panel
The TiO2 photoelectrode was pasted on ITO coated PET sub-
strate using screen printing technique, which is similar to the doc-
tor blade method. The TiO2 layer of thickness around 50 mm was
coated for area on 1  1 cm for small cell and 2  4 cm for large
cells on the FTO flexible PET substrate. After drying in vacuum,
The TiO2 photoelectrode prepared was immersed in a 3 mM etha-
nol solution of N3 dye for 24 h to sensitize the layer. Rinsing with
ethanol solution and drying with warm air were the next treat-
ment done to the as-prepared sensitized photoelectrode layer.
Next, the prepared gel-polymer electrolyte (phthaloylchitosan)
was spread uniformly on top of the dye-sensitized TiO2 layer using
screen printing technique. The other layer was prepared by follow-
ing steps, first the hydrothermally prepared CoS2 was ultrasoni-
cally dispersed in ethanol 10% w/v ratio. The ethonal-CoS2 was
taken in Micro-spraying gun and spayed uniformly on top of Ag
grid embedded on PET substrate, then this layer is dyed in warm
 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328 323

(a)
Fig. 5. The IPEC measurement of flexible DSSC.

air for 4 h. Lastly, the as-deposited CoS2 film as CE (CoS2/Ag/PET)

and other layer (PET/ITO/TiO2:N3/Gel-polymer electrolyte) were
gently pressed together to form a sandwich type DSSC. The active
device area was 0.2 cm2 (small cells) and 8 cm2 (Large solar cell)
photovoltaic performance analysis were performed in the air
atmosphere. The assembled device configuration was PET/ITO/
TiO2-N3/Gel-polymer electrolyte/CoS2/Ag/PET. The edges were
sealed with encapsulation epoxy, in order to improve the stability
of the designed DSSC.

100

80

60
I (mA)

40

20

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Voltage (V)
(b) Fig. 7. (a) the FOSP (large), intensity controlled incandescent bulb, (b) IV charac-
teristics of panel measured under standard 1.5 AM, and (c). (i) Transformers for
power supply provided to (ii) PIC 16F877A microcontroller and circuit, (iv) BBC, and
Fig. 6. FOSP section (b) IV characteristics of flexible DSSC (single unit). (v) sample load (LED), Note the LED runs on energy derived from solar panel.
324 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328

Fig. 8. BBC for energy extraction from PV.

30 tion is preferred over parallel connection in order to avoid cell to

cell mismatch and to keep the voltage in the range of commercially
available solar panels.
25

3. Results and discussion

20
Votage (V)

The PCE (g) of fabricated DSSC was 7.09% (average of g for 10

15 cells was 7.09 ± 0.04%) with Jsc of 17.51 mA/cm2, FF of 0.62, and
Voc of 0.65 V, this performance is on par with the CoS2 based CE
10 (7.29%) electrochemically deposited on FTO glass substrate and rel-
atively low to Pt CE (7.82%) [Green, 2010 #324]. The reasonable
PCE of agglomerated nanocluster CoS2 CE could be attributed to
5 higher FF and Jsc, which manifested due to the improved interfacial
charge transfer and high active electrocatalytic sites by fractally
0 organized surface structure of CoS2 CE.
2.0
1.5 3.1. Incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPEC)
1.0
The IPEC of the single cell was measured using QEPVSI-B (New
dρ/ dD

0.5
0.0 Port, USA). The results showed that the device had maximum con-
version efficiency around 550 nm (green). And it also showed the
-0.5
dρ/dD = 0 efficiency was around 4.88% in UV region (330 nm–400 nm),
-1.0 87.37% in the visible spectrum (400–700 nm) and 7.75% in the
-1.5 infra-red region. Over all the calculated short circuit current was
-2.0 around 17.51 mAcm-2 which is very close to the experimentally
0.100 measure current density (J sc ) in IV characterization. If assumed
0.075 100% EQE this device would produce a Jsc of 21.6 mAcm-2 and
0.050 the calculated LUMO – HOMO gap was 1.76 eV.
dV/dD

0.025
0.000
-0.025 3.2. Flexible organic solar panel fabrication:
-0.050 dV/dD = 0
-0.075 The electrodes obtains from commercial vendors had a dimen-
-0.100 sion of 10 cm  1.8 cm (l  b), to avoid short circuit the active area
0 20 40 60 80 100 selected per cell was 8.6 cm  1.5 cm. The layers were formed as
described earlier, the total (active) area formed by 13 cm2. Each
Duty Cycle Ratio (%) of this cell produce a open circuit voltage of Voc 1.73 V and Isc of
83 mA. The IV curve for single cell is illustrated in the Fig. 6 give
Fig. 9. The relationship between input voltage (Vin), output Voltage (Vo), deriva-
 
below (Figs. 7 and 8).
dq
tives of input dD
and output voltage dV dD
were D being duty cycle ratio, qis an
  The strip contained 26 units of such units connected in serial
arbitrary function which equals to V NVD
oc
N
, N stands for Nth iteration, V oc is the connection. The resulting strip contains approximately an active
voltage of PV when D = 0. Measured values are for an insolation of 270 mW/cm2. area 335.4 cm2. In order to find the IV curve of the FOSP a variable
resistor reinstate (0–500 O) was connected and voltage and current
Fig. 3a show steps involved in the fabrication of the DSSC device was measure by varying the load resistance. The FOSP was kept
as a flow chart. To FOSP was prepared by serial connection small along with a solar flux sensor and reading were taken only when
solar cells, each unit contains 4 units of small solar cell to produce insolation was around 1 SUN (1.5 AM). The IV curve obtained
2.4 V output, then 26 of this units were connected in series form was given below, the FOSP produced an open circuit voltage of
FOSP with maximum voltage output of 62.4 V. The serial connec- 45 V (Voc) and a short circuit current of 80 mA. The FF was around
 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328
0.61. The FOSP attained maximum power at 28.8 V, with a power
output of 2.25 W.
3.3. Stability
Further the stability test for the fabricated DSSCs using nanoclus-
ter CoS2 and Pt CEs was investigated. Due to encapsulation, the
designed flexible DSSC retained 96% primary performance was
retained after 7 days of operation, which is higher than the perfor-
mance of unprotected DSSC (82%) of same materials on glass sub-
strate. After 180 days the performance deteriorated to 78% of its
initial performance. The performance data is measured periodical
over a time period 365 days at varying intervals. The FOSP was left
in ambient conditions. The measured data implicates that the per-
formance deterioration follows 2nd order polynomial equation for
this solar panel. (Data available on request).gD ¼ g0  1
105 D2  2:8  103 DWhere,
gD = Efficiency on the day,
g0 = Initial efficiency,
D = Number of days.
If this equation is extrapolated, the efficiency of solar cell falls
below 1% PCE around 650 days and completely fails around
700 days. This shows that the stability of nanocluster CoS2 CE
based flexible DSSC was enhanced with encapsulation, so it is
ready for deployment to the field installation even with low effi-
ciency there are numerous applications that this solar type of FOSP
could be deployed. The cost of these solar panels would be a frac-
tion of Pt CE based DSSC.
Fig. 10. Show the mC part of the energy harvester.
325
3.4. Implementation of the power converters
In order to evaluate the performance of Flexible DSSC panel, a
power converter was designed and hardware implemented. The
basic configuration does not need external power supply, but for
tests an external power was provided to mC and display circuit
which enabled the continuous monitoring of the performance of
solar panel. So that the FOSP supplies to the sensor circuit, BBC
and the load. The BBC was design based on two switch that
allowed a common ground and through which the measurement
of input and output voltage of the buck-bust converter is monitor
using a mC.
MPPT algorithm can be implemented using either input or out-
put voltage sensing for resistive loads. The algorithm also tested for
battery (capacitive load) and the typical load for these type small
solar cells will be a battery. To test inductive load the system
was connected to a small DC motor (inductive) load. The output
voltage was stable for inductive and capacity loads under varying
illumination condition. For testing the input and output voltages
were recorded by systematically increasing the duty cycle in steps
1–255 (8-bit). Fig. 9 shows the relationship between input voltage
(Vin), output Voltage (Vo), The derivatives of input and output

 
dq
voltage. For DDOV, dV o
and DDIV, dD were computed, here in
dD
formulae, D is duty cycle ratio, q is an arbitrary function which
 
equals to V NVD
oc
N
, N stands for Nth iteration, V oc is the voltage
when D = 0 (i.e: open circuit voltage). Both 1st order derivatives

 
dV dq
dD
and dD becomes zero at MPP for a resistive load. Thus, an
326 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328

algorithm was developed for MPPT, by only sensing input or output

voltage. Pseudo code for input voltage-based algorithm.

Set V in ðN  1Þ at DðN  1Þ
Loop sample and average V N ðN Þ
 
Calculate q ¼ V NVD N

 
oc

dq
Calculate dD
 
dq
If dD > 0 do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ þ DD
OR
 
dq
If dD < 0 do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ  DD
ELSE
do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ
GOTO Loop

Pseudo code for output voltage-based algorithm.

Set V o ðN  1Þ at DðN  1Þ
Loop sample and average V o ðN Þ


Calculate dV o

dD
If dV
dD
o
¼ 0 do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ
ELSE


If dV
dD
o
!¼0
AND


If dV
dD
o
< 0 do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ  DD
ELSE
do DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ þ DD
GOTO Loop

Experimental results show that both methods work well. The

maximum power is obtained around 0.64 Voc. Hence for small
power applications, the implementation fractional open circuit
voltage works well for these type of flexible solar PV panels. The
Pseudo code would be as follows

Set V in ðN  1Þ at DðN  1Þ
sample and average V in ðN Þ; V o ðN Þ
If (V in ðN Þ > 5Þ
Calculate DðN Þ ¼ ð0:64V
Vo
Þ
in

If (V in ðN Þ > 5Þ
 
V o 0:64V in
Calculate DðN Þ ¼ Vo

Loop sample and average V o ðN Þ

If dV
dD
o
<0
DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ  DDOR


If dVdD
o
>0
DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ þ DD
ELSE
DðN þ 1Þ ¼ DðN Þ

The MPP of the fabricated organic photovoltaic panel was

always around kV oc where k is constant factor of Vmpp/Voc: When
implementing FOCV algorithm based MPPT was done, but found
to be very unstable as there was difference between actual and
assumed Vmpp was large. Nevertheless, this is very useful expedite
the process of nearing to MPP, when compared to traditional P&O.
In several reports earlier P&O was used alone with other tech-
niques to rapids the process. For this cell based on CoS2 the MPP
was around 0.64 of Voc. So, a modified algorithm which initially Fig. 11. Relationship between input voltage (Vmpp) to output voltage (Vout), under
uses FOCV to find an approximate operating point and exact MPP varying sunlight (a) the converter works in buck mode, (b) in buck and boost mode,
(c) The PWM generated under the similar conditions.
was determined using duty cycle derivatives of output voltage.
 S. Prasad et al. / Materials Science for Energy Technologies 2 (2019) 319–328
The mC circuit shown in Fig. 9 contains a LCD display to show
the input and output voltages. The output of this circuit is con-
nected to 500 mA, 5-volt Li-ion battery. The buck-boost switches
were isolated using a opto-coupler which can be switched up to
20 KHz. The power for mC and LCD display is either drawn from
5 V regulated power supply and could be supplied from the
battery.
The input and output response of the system was measured
using digital storage oscilloscope and data was plotted using Orig-
inpro 8.5. Fig. 10 shows the input voltage and output response of
the bock boost converter with MPPT algorithm. The sample was
taken every 10mS at the both points. The control circuit always tries
to achieve 5 V out with setting input voltage. The V oc was measure
at the begin of each operation. Fig. 10.a show the buck mode oper-
ation and Fig. 10.b show the PWM corresponding to it. Fig. 10.b
shows the input and output response under boost mode. The sys-
tem is able to charge the battery until voltage drops less than
3.5 V (Fig 11).
The FOSP was able to produce a power of 2600 mW, which
would be a reasonable for small applications such as distributed
sensor network, rural light (off – grid), due to the flexibility and
low cost of the DSSC solar panel, it can be used in urban building
roof top, windows and car parking areas. This could reduce the
electricity bills. While the efficiency of the solar cell was only
around 5%, these FOSP have some realistic applications.
3.5. Development of a test bench:
In the over casted conditions, it is very difficult to test these
solar panel. Hence, a four 100 W, incandescent bulb (220 v) was
placed on top the FOSP and each bulb was controlled using a volt-
age regulator. So that the irradiation can be varied to see the
response of the panel. 4 bulbs produced approximately 40 mW/
cm2. The panel produced an output voltage Voc of 26 V and current
of 30 mA. The BB converter worked under these conditions.
4. Conclusion
In this work, we were able to extract maximum power from a
flexible FOSP by using MPPT with a combined algorithm of FVOC
and DDOV. The PWM ratio was generated using above algorithm
for both capacitive and resistive loads. This system could be used
for many off-grid applications.
Authors contribution
S.P, R.B, D.D designed the work, S.P & S.S did experiments, D.D
and R.B interpreted the results and all authors contributed towards
writing the manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mset.2019.02.004.
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