Grupo de Diseño de Productos y Procesos (GDPP), Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 111711, Colombia.
Nanomaterials Laboratory, Physics Department, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, 111711, Colombia.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 25;10(1):3376. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-60408-5.
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/cm 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.
染料敏化太阳能电池（DSSC）因其基于低回报时间材料的清洁能源而备受关注。这些设备旨在模仿光合作用生物的太阳能转换过程（自然界中观察到的最高效能量转换现象），使用低成本材料。最近，基于与合成染料相比更高的光吸收效率，光捕获复合物（LHC）已被提议作为 DSSC 中的潜在染料。在这项工作中，通过首次向异源表达的莱茵衣藻光捕获蛋白添加 Leu 和 Lys 标签，合理设计了光电化学混合器件，从而允许它们在石墨烯电极上正确取向和固定。最初在大肠杆菌中表达莱茵衣藻的光捕获复合物 4（LHC4），通过亲和层析进行纯化，然后固定在等离子体处理的薄膜石墨烯电极上。使用含有磷酰化紫精的液体电解质补充剂，在器件上测量到 40.30±9.26μA/cm 的光电流密度，以促进电荷转移。我们的结果表明，可以从合理标记的 LHC 蛋白制造新型基于石墨烯的薄膜光伏器件，并为进一步探索与合成材料接口的生物成分的能量转移基本过程提供了可能性。
