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Photoelectrochemical tandem cells with enzymes wired to hierarchically-structured electrodes for solar fuel synthesis


Type

Thesis

Change log

Authors

Sokol, Katarzyna 

Abstract

In photosynthesis, solar energy drives the conversion of CO2 and H2O into chemical energy carriers and building blocks, releasing O2 as a by-product. Artificial photosynthesis attempts to mimic this process to produce a renewable and storable fuel, such as H2. Semi-artificial photosynthesis combines the strengths of natural photosynthesis with synthetic chemistry and materials science to develop model systems that overcome Nature’s limitations, such as low-yielding metabolic pathways and non-complementary light absorption by photosystem (PS) I and II. PSII, the first photosynthetic enzyme, is capable of photocatalytic water oxidation, a bottleneck reaction in artificial photosynthesis. The study of PSII in protein film photoelectrochemical (PF-PEC) platforms sheds light into its biological function and provides a blueprint for artificial water-splitting systems. However, the integration of biomolecules into electrodes is often limited by inefficient wiring at the biotic−abiotic interface. In this thesis, a range of tuneable hierarchically-structured electrodes was developed, constituting a versatile platform to accommodate a variety of biotic guests for PF-PEC cells. A new benchmark PSII−electrode system was assembled, that combined the efficient wiring afforded by redox-active polymers with the high loading provided by hierarchically-structured inverse opal indium tin oxide (IO-ITO) electrodes. A fully-integrated host−guest system showed a substantially improved wiring of PSII to the IO-ITO electrode with an Os complex-based and a phenothiazine-based polymer. Subsequently, a bias-free tandem semi-artificial cell was assembled, that wired PSII to hydrogenase for overall solar-driven water splitting. This PEC cell integrated the red and blue light-absorber PSII with a green light-absorbing diketopyrrolopyrrole dye-sensitised TiO2 photoanode enabling complementary panchromatic solar light absorption. Effective electronic communication at the enzyme−material interface was engineered using an Os complex-modified polymer on a hierarchically-structured IO-TiO2. Finally, a semi-artificial tandem device was designed, which performed solar-driven CO2 reduction to formate with formate dehydrogenase by coupling to the PSII−dye photoanode. The system achieved a metabolically-inaccessible pathway of light-driven CO2 fixation to formate and demonstrated a precious metal-free model for solar-driven selective CO2 to formate conversion using water as an electron donor. These semi-artificial platforms demonstrate the translatability and versatility of coupling selective and efficient electrochemical reactions to create challenging models and proof-of- principle devices for solar fuel synthesis. They provide a design protocol for bias-free semi-artificial Z-schemes and an extended toolbox of biotic and abiotic components to reengineer photosynthetic pathways. The assembly strategies presented here may form the basis of all-integrated electrode designs for a wide range of biological and synthetic catalysts.

Description

Date

Advisors

Reisner, Erwin

Keywords

Qualification

PhD

Awarding Institution

University of Cambridge