A biological cell-free photosynthetic system

초록

Photosynthesis is an energy conversion process that all the living organisms derive their chemical and biological energy either directly or indirectly from sunlight. Thus, this biological photosynthetic system is naturally biocompatible in terms of its involved materials, reactions, and even energy levels. Here, we present a new strategy to utilize this biotic photosynthesis to a cell-free abiotic system. We fabricated a nanostructured thin film utilizing photosynthetic proteins by molecular layer-by-layer assembly. This film shows light sensitive chemical potentials as well as electrochemical signals. We further investigated the properties of the film utilizing a scanning electron microscopy (SEM), an atomic force microscopy (AFM), a zeta potential, a UV-Vis-Nir spectroscopy, a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), an electrochemical potentiostat, and an elemental analyzer.