Reversing Electron Transfer Chain for Light-Driven Hydrogen Production in Biotic-Abiotic Hybrid Systems

The biotic-abiotic photosynthetic system integrating inorganic light absorbers with whole-cell biocatalysts innovates the way for sustainable solar-driven chemical transformation. Fundamentally, the electron transfer at the biotic-abiotic interface, which may induce biological response to photoexcited electron stimuli, plays an essential role in solar energy conversion. Herein, we selected an electro-active bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 as a model, which constitutes a hybrid photosynthetic system with a self-assembled CdS semiconductor, to demonstrate unique biotic-abiotic interfacial behavior. The photoexcited electrons from CdS nanoparticles can reverse the extracellular electron transfer (EET) chain within S. oneidensis MR-1, realizing the activation of a bacterial catalytic network with light illumination. As compared with bare S. oneidensis MR-1, a significant upregulation of hydrogen yield (711-fold), ATP, and reducing equivalent (NADH/NAD⁺) was achieved in the S. oneidensis MR-1-CdS under visible light. This work sheds light on the fundamental mechanism and provides design guidelines for biotic-abiotic photosynthetic systems.