A Hybrid Biological-Organic Photochemical Half-Cell for Generating Dihydrogen

Figure 1. A diagram depicting th e hybrid biological/organic photochemical half-cell. This report describes our progress towards the design, assembly, characterization, and optimization of a biological/organic hybrid photochemical halfcell. This device will couple PS I, which efficiently captures and stores energy derived from sunlight, with either an [FeFe]-H2ase or a [NiFe]-H2ase, which can generate a high rate of H2 evolution when provided with a source of electrons (see Figure 1). In the last two years, we have designed and tested the concept of using a covalently bonded, molecular wire