Photosystem II-Carbon Nitride Photoanodes for Scalable Biophotoelectrochemistry.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40817609.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1002/adma.202508813 and PMC identifier 12801365.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Photosystem II (PSII) is a vital photosynthetic enzyme with the potential for sustainable bioelectricity and fuel generation. However, interfacing PSII with intricate, small-scale electrodes for practical applications has been challenging. This study addresses this by creating protonated macroporous carbon nitride (MCN) as support and developing a scalable spray-freeze method to wire PSII with MCN. This facilitates the production of large-area MCN-PSII photoanodes up to 33 cm<sup>2</sup> for biophotoelectrochemical water oxidation to O<sub>2</sub>, achieving efficient interfacial charge transfer and initial photocurrents in the mA range with Faradaic yield of 93.5 ± 8.5% over 5 h. A bias-free biophotoelectrochemical (BPEC) device is designed by connecting the MCN-PSII photoanode to a carbon nanotube cathode loaded with bilirubin oxidase. An array of eight tandem BPEC cells with a photoactive area of 72 cm<sup>2</sup> successfully powers low-power electronics, such as LEDs. This work paves an efficient way for bioelectrode fabrication, showcasing the potential of PSII-based semi-artificial systems for BPEC and biophotovoltaic applications.