Improving the lifetime of bioelectrodes for solar energy conversion

The use of proteins involved in the photosynthetic process enables the development of affordable and efficient devices for energy conversion. However, although proteins such as photosystem I are robust in nature, the use of isolated protein complexes incorporated in semi-artificial electrodes is associated with a considerably short long-term stability. In consequence, the technological application of these kind of biodevices is still limited. Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) showed that a careful operation of the photosystem-based bioelectrode under the exclusion of oxygen is the key for achieving high stability.

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