To Biotic or Abiotic: Biohybrid Systems for Artificial Photosynthesis

Biotic-abiotic interfaced configurations hold great promise for application in renewable energy and artificial photosynthesis systems. Recent advances in synthetic biology, computational, and visualization techniques, along with enhanced high-resolution characterization, have enabled a deeper fundamental understanding of the interface, which, in turn, has improved electron transfer processes and the design architecture. These developed configurations open new routes to mimic the photosynthetic apparatus or add new applications based on biotic and abiotic catalytic reactions. Aiming to surpass natural systems, researchers have examined methods to reconfigure these block sets into new designs. This review focuses on the advances in artificial photosynthesis and coupled biotic-abiotic biohybrid systems. The work presents the development of artificial photosynthesis configurations aimed at generating light-induced energy or fuels. The use of natural photosynthetic proteins, inorganic photocatalysts, and advanced biohybrid materials is presented and discussed, aiming to enable future biotic-abiotic design and the ambitious goal of developing real-world applications.