Semi-artificial Photosynthetic CO₂ Reduction through Purple Membrane Re-engineering with Semiconductor

Abstract

The engineering of biological pathways with man-made materials provides inspiring blueprints for sustainable fuel production. Here, we leverage a top-down cellular engineering strategy to develop a new semi-artificial photosynthetic paradigm for carbon dioxide reduction via enveloping <i>Halobacterium</i> purple membrane-derived vesicles over Pd-deposited hollow porous TiO₂ nanoparticles. In this biohybrid, the membrane protein, bacteriorhodopsin, not only retains its native biological function of pumping protons but also acts as a photosensitizer that injects light-excited electrons into the conduction band of TiO₂. As such, the electrons trapped on Pd cocatalysts and the protons accumulated inside the cytomimetic architecture act in concert to reduce CO₂ via proton-coupled multielectron transfer processes. This study provides an alternative toolkit for developing robust semi-artificial photosynthetic systems for solar energy conversion.