Living intracellular inorganic-microorganism biohybrid system for efficient solar hydrogen generation

Summary

The thirsty demand for renewable, sustainable, and efficient hydrogen production has promoted the rapid development of advanced technologies, and whole-cell microorganism-based biological hydrogen production is one of the most promising strategies. Herein, we demonstrate the solar-light-induced enhancement of biological hydrogen production on the typical non-photosynthetic and non-genetic engineered bacteria. Furthermore, an intracellular inorganic-biological hybrid system is proposed to improve the hydrogen generation rate. The formation of intrinsic inorganic-biological junctions facilitates photo-electron separation and transfer and thus reaches a high biohybrid hydrogen generation rate of 7,800 ± 12 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹. Our work sheds light on the advantages of an intracellular inorganic-biological hybrid system by combining the light-harvesting capacity of inorganic materials with the metabolic power of microbes to produce biofuels and chemical compounds and indicates the promising potential for solar-to-chemical conversion in a desirable and selective manner with higher diversity and functionality.