Solar energy is clean, renewable, and abundant, but constitutes a minor energy source in the U.S. and worldwide. One reason why solar energy does not meet its potential is its intermittent and diffuse nature. Developing ways to store solar energy is critical to fully developing the use of this sustainable energy source. An approach is to mimic photosynthesis, in which nature stores light energy in the form of chemical bonds. One attractive reaction for this work is the production of hydrogen (H<sub>2</sub>) fuel from water. In this work, we present systems for accomplishing this task using metallobiomolecular catalysts for hydrogen evolution from water consisting of engineered metalloproteins or metallopeptides. Pairing these catalysts with a photosensitizer (inorganic dye or quantum dots) and ascorbic acid as a sacrificial electron donor yields systems that produce hydrogen from water with TONs exceeding 10,000 in some cases. The relationship between photosensitizer quenching pathway and hydrogen production will be discussed. Finally, an approach to replacing the ascorbic acid donor with a bioelectrochemical system will be presented.

Bioinorganic systems for artificial photosynthesis

253rd National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.