Work

A Living Semiartificial Photoelectrocatalytic Biohybrid for Solar CO 2 Fixation and Fermentation to Fatty Acids

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide To address the global climate and energy crisis, innovative strategies are urgently needed to transform CO 2 into sustainable fuels and chemicals. We present a semiartificial biophotoelectrochemical (BPEC) platform, combining solar energy conversion with naturally evolved microbes to develop solutions for transforming CO 2 and water into multicarbon products─without sacrificial additives or precious materials. This remains extremely challenging for fully artificial photocatalytic systems. Our system features a scalable and low-cost CuBi 2 O 4 photocathode, stabilized by a thin MgO interlayer, in direct contact with the CO 2 -fixing bacterium Sporomusa ovata grown on the electrode surface. This interface enables direct electron uptake, eliminating the need for diffusible redox mediators or externally supplied H 2 ─limitations commonly seen in bionic leaf systems. The BPEC operated stably for 140 h (5.5 days), a record duration for a Cu-based system, producing 673.2 ± 71.4 μM cm –2 acetate and 683 ± 55.2 μM cm –2 of ethanol with a Faradaic efficiency of 69% for C 2 products. Subsequent addition of Clostridium kluyveri enabled biological chain elongation, producing 1.31 ± 0.2 μmol butyrate (C 4 ) and 0.6 ± 0.1 μmol caproate (C 6 ), with 0.72 ± 0.2 μmol H 2 as a fermentation byproduct. To our knowledge, this represents the longest-chain solar-driven CO 2 -derived product reported to date, highlighting a critical advance in artificial photosynthesis. This approach demonstrates the power of pairing stable photoelectrochemical interfaces with microbial consortia to utilize CO 2 as a feedstock for solar chemical production.

Source: ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c15023