Unbiased biocatalytic solar-to-chemical conversion by FeOOH/BiVO4/perovskite tandem structure

Redox enzymes catalyze fascinating chemical reactions with excellent regio- and stereo-specificity. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cofactor is essential in numerous redox biocatalytic reactions and needs to be regenerated because it is consumed as an equivalent during the enzymatic turnover. Here we report on unbiased photoelectrochemical tandem assembly of a photoanode (FeOOH/BiVO 4 ) and a perovskite photovoltaic to provide sufficient potential for cofactor-dependent biocatalytic reactions. We obtain a high faradaic efficiency of 96.2% and an initial conversion rate of 2.4 mM h −1 without an external applied bias for the photoelectrochemical enzymatic conversion of α-ketoglutarate to l -glutamate via l -glutamate dehydrogenase. In addition, we achieve a total turnover number and a turnover frequency of the enzyme of 108,800 and 6200 h −1 , respectively, demonstrating that the tandem configuration facilitates redox biocatalysis using light as the only energy source. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell platforms typically need an electrical bias that drives the electron transfer from the photoanode to the photocathode. Here, the authors report a bias-free PEC tandem device for solar-driven redox biocatalysis.