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Artificial photosynthetic technologies could potentially contribute to limiting global warming while providing useful chemicals for society. This Review Article covers photosynthetic semiconductor biohybrids—electrodes/nanomaterials coupled with microorganisms—for light-driven catalytic conversion of CO2 to fuels and other value-added chemicals.
Spatial organization of biocatalytic cascades can improve their performance. In this Review Article, Itamar Willner and colleagues discuss technologies to artificially confine and localize enzyme cascades, the origin of observed rate enhancements and potential applications of such designed systems.
Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful oxidizing agent with many applications. Now, a method is presented to generate it from the oxidation of water on a polytetrafluoroethylene-coated glassy carbon electrode with high efficiency.
Identifying the rate-determining step (RDS) for oxygen incorporation into mixed ionic and electronic conducting electrodes is very challenging, particularly since the local composition changes during the reaction. Now, a generally applicable method for identifying the RDS is presented, with the example of a Pr0.1Ce0.9O2–x electrode.
Electrochemical reactions can provide necessary redox equivalents for biocatalysis. In this Review, Minteer and co-workers summarize the current status and challenges of enzymatic and microbial bioelectrocatalysis for the green and efficient production of target products using electricity.
The electrochemical synthesis of high-value chemicals is still far from industrial application, mostly due to the lack of stable and efficient catalysts. Now evidence reveals that gaining a fundamental understanding of an electrochemical reaction can lead to faster development of optimal catalytic materials.
Advances in enzyme performance and capabilities are making them increasingly attractive to synthetic chemists. In this Review Chen and Arnold outline the ways that enzymes have been engineered to achieve reactivities well beyond their original functions.
Genetic incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins broadens the possibilities of enzyme design. This Perspective discusses the exciting opportunities for biocatalysis offered by this method — such as new-to-nature catalytic activities — and potential benefits over classical enzyme engineering.
