Amino-Acid-Mediated Biomimetic Formation of Light-Harvesting Antenna Capable of Hydrogen Evolution

The control of materials concerning size as well as high-order organization may have profound implications for a wide variety of technologies. Herein, we develop a facile strategy to fabricate hierarchically organized amino acid and quantum dot (QD) biomimetic light-harvesting antenna via the integration of coordination-driven self-assembly and bioinspired mineralization. Simplified from phytochelatins, cystine is used as a chelating agent to bind cadmium ions (Cd²⁺). This coordination interaction further drives the self-assembly of cystine into hierarchical hybrid crystals. The hybrid templates can provide ordered sites for in situ mineralization of cadmium sulfide (CdS) to generate hierarchical three-dimensional QDs architectures. Optimal light harvesting properties are obtained by controlling the mineralization conditions, which facilitates photocatalytic hydrogen (H₂) evolution. In addition, the CdS QDs architectures possess sustainable photocatalytic performance because of robust assembled structures, rendering them potent candidates for optoelectronic applications.