Nitrogen in biological molecules ultimately comes from the reduction of dinitrogen. In nature, nitrogen fixation is mostly done by symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Interfacing biological catalysts with inorganic materials is constructive towards efficient and customizable chemical production at ambient temperature and pressure. Here, we demonstrate a microbial-semiconductor hybrid system with an appreciable internal quantum efficiency of 8.9 ± 1.4 % for photocatalytic nitrogen fixation, carbon fixation with an internal quantum efficiency of 59.0 ± 9.1 % is achieved concurrently. This hybrid system consists of nitrogen-fixing microbes, <i>Xanthobacter autotrophicus</i>, and commercially available CdTe quantum dots with a unique interfacial charge transfer behavior at the microbial-semiconductor interface. Metabolomics and proteomics studies reveal a metabolism favoring nitrogen accumulation, pertinent to our observed efficiency of nitrogen fixation.

Microbial-semiconductor hybrid system for photocatalytic nitrogen fixation with a high quantum efficiency

ACS Spring 2022

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