posted on 2021-09-21, 07:04authored byNahid Torabi, Xinkai Qiu, Manuel López-Ortiz, Mark Loznik, Andreas Herrmann, Ahmad Kermanpur, Ali Ashrafi, Ryan C. Chiechi
This
paper describes
the fabrication of microfluidic devices with
a focus on controlling the orientation of photosystem I (PSI) complexes,
which directly affects the performance of biophotovoltaic devices
by maximizing the efficiency of the extraction of electron/hole pairs
from the complexes. The surface chemistry of the electrode on which
the complexes assemble plays a critical role in their orientation.
We compared the degree of orientation on self-assembled monolayers
of phenyl-C61-butyric acid and a custom peptide on nanostructured
gold electrodes. Biophotovoltaic devices fabricated with the C61 fulleroid exhibit significantly improved performance and
reproducibility compared to those utilizing the peptide, yielding
a 1.6-fold increase in efficiency. In addition, the C61-based devices were more stable under continuous illumination. Our
findings show that fulleroids, which are well-known acceptor materials
in organic photovoltaic devices, facilitate the extraction of electrons
from PSI complexes without sacrificing control over the orientation
of the complexes, highlighting this combination of traditional organic
semiconductors with biomolecules as a viable approach to coopting
natural photosynthetic systems for use in solar cells.