Synthesis of Magnesium and Zinc Metalloporphyrins for Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Anthropogenic climate change is an issue. The switch to renewable and non-carbon-generating energy sources requires multiple functioning sources ranging from wind and water to sunlight. While most renewables and nuclear energy produce moderate to high energy conversion yields sunlight is one of the least efficient yet readily abundant sources. Current research on improving this yield comes from Perovskite and dye-sensitized solar cells. Most research with dye-sensitized solar cells use porphyrins coordinated with zinc. Chlorophylls, the natural analogues to porphyrins, instead use magnesium. To understand the effect these metals have on energy conversion efficiency multiple porphyrin dyes were made. Using readily available resources of pyrrole and different benzaldehydes porphyrin rings were synthesized then chelated to magnesium or zinc. The produced dyes were labeled and catalogued for future use in assembly and efficiency testing of solar cells