| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Energy Frontiers Focus Topic | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session EN-TuP |
| Session: | Energy Frontiers Poster Session |
| Presenter: | CarlosFelipeRezende Facchini, University of Campinas, Brazil |
| Authors: | C.F.R. Facchini, University of Campinas, Brazil L.T. Manera, University of Campinas, Brazil P. Mazzafera, University of Campinas, Brazil R.V. Ribeiro, University of Campinas, Brazil E. Kiyota, University of Campinas, Brazil |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The high efficiency which some organisms perform photosynthesis and its abundance around the globe, coupled with high world energy demand in the coming years and the low competitiveness of current photovoltaic devices in comparison with other forms of energy, inspired us to build a Bio-photovoltaic device composed of a heavily p-doped silicon substrates and a tandem of protein complex called Photosystem 1 (PS1) found in the thylakoid of leaves.
The process extraction of PS1 complexes from spinach essentially consists of two general steps: the extraction of thylakoid membranes from the spinach leaves and the isolation and purification of PS1 complexes from the thylakoids.
For the deposition of PS1 films onto silicon substrates we use a simple and straightforward method. The procedure entails depositing a volume (100µL) of an aqueous PS1 suspension on to a silicon surface modified with 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane (APTS) and applying a negative pressure (~70 mTorr) to remove the solvent from the PSI solution via vacuum deposition process. The thermodynamic driving force for the formation of these films arises from hydrophobic interactions between neighboring protein complexes in the film and by tuning the silicon Fermi energy by doping. This promotes the alignment of silicon bands with redox active sites of PS1, which leads to the formation of dense and resilient films.
Iterative depositions were similarly performed and for two deposition steps, a thickness of ~600nm was achieved, thereby increasing the efficiency of the bio-hybrid cell.
These results represent significant progress toward affordable, biologically-inspired renewable energy conversion platforms.