Abstract
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been highlighted as the promising alternative to generate clean energy based on low pay-back time materials. These devices have been designed to mimic solar energy conversion processes from photosynthetic organisms (the most efficient energy transduction phenomenon observed in nature) with the aid of low-cost materials. Recently, light-harvesting complexes (LHC) have been proposed as potential dyes in DSSCs based on their higher light-absorption efficiencies as compared to synthetic dyes. In this work, photo-electrochemical hybrid devices were rationally designed by adding for the first time Leu and Lys tags to heterologously expressed light-harvesting proteins from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, thus allowing their proper orientation and immobilization on graphene electrodes. The light-harvesting complex 4 from C. reinhardtii (LHC4) was initially expressed in Escherichia coli, purified via affinity chromatography and subsequently immobilized on plasma-treated thin-film graphene electrodes. A photocurrent density of 40.30 ± 9.26 μA/cm2 was measured on devices using liquid electrolytes supplemented with a phosphonated viologen to facilitate charge transfer. Our results suggest that a new family of graphene-based thin-film photovoltaic devices can be manufactured from rationally tagged LHC proteins and opens the possibility to further explore fundamental processes of energy transfer for biological components interfaced with synthetic materials.
Highlights
Www.nature.com/scientificreports components for superior transduction[7]
A current challenge for the application of light-harvesting complexes in Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is the development of strategies for low-cost production of such proteins at large scale, which might eventually facilitate their study and field implementation
The possibility of manufacturing low-cost graphene-based DSSC with rationally-designed light-harvesting proteins from photosynthetic microorganisms enables the generation of highly efficient biohybrid photoelectrochemical cells
Summary
Www.nature.com/scientificreports components for superior transduction[7]. In order to manufacture a DSSC, dyes, and electrodes are required to allow light-induced charge separation through the conjugation interface. Among the emerging eco-friendly dyes, photosynthetic proteins have been recently used to design photosynthetic machinery-based DSSCs9 In this regard, light-harvesting complexes (LHC) have been proposed as potential dyes for the production of DSSCs due to their ability to efficiently capture solar radiation in the visible region[10,11,12]. The potential for using protein-based dyes (e.g., LHCs from C. reinhardtii) instead of traditional synthetic light-harvesters is enabled by their feasibility to be produced by recombinant expression in model microorganisms[14]. Research in this area is, still at its infancy and only a few studies have attempted to explore this potential[9,24]. This work is aimed at rationally designing hybrid photo-electrochemical devices using graphene-based electrodes as a platform for the immobilization of recombinantly-expressed tagged C. reinhardtii LHCA proteins for solar energy capture and photocurrent generation
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