A heptamethine cyanine dye suitable as antenna in biohybrids based on bacterial photosynthetic reaction center
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MRS Advances © 2018 Materials Research Society DOI: 10.1557/adv.2018.640
A heptamethine cyanine dye suitable as antenna in biohybrids based on bacterial photosynthetic reaction center Roberta Ragni1, Gabriella Leone1, Simona la Gatta1,2, Giorgio Rizzo1, Marco Lo Presti1, Vincenzo De Leo1, Francesco Milano3,#, Massimo Trotta2,* and G. M. Farinola1,* 1
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”, via Orabona 4, I-70126 Bari 2 Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici CNR-IPCF, Dipartimento di Chimica, via Orabona 4, I-70126 Bari; 3 CNR-ISPA, Institute of Sciences of Food Production, Lecce Unit, Via Prov.le Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy. # Permanent address: Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici CNR-IPCF. * Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed
ABSTRACT:
Sunlight is the most environmental friendly energy source available on Earth; many efforts devoted to design artificial photoconversion systems are ongoing, nevertheless they are still expensive and poorly efficient. Photoconversion devices made with organic-biological hybrids, or biohybrids, based on the photosynthetic reaction center (RC) have been introduced. In these systems, the photoenzyme is garnished with artificial antennas to enhance the photoactivity of the RC. Here we present a newly synthesized heptamethine cyanine dye that fulfills requisites to act as efficient RC light harvesting antenna.
INTRODUCTION: Sun is the most abundant and cheap energy source for the Earth and it will irradiate our planet for roughly other five billions of years. Environmental and economic factors are slowly shifting energy supply from the traditional fossil fuels to inorganic or organic solar photoconverters that have been inspired, designed and engineered to mimic the photosynthetic process performed by plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria[1]. The design of artificial solar photoconverters mimicking or exploiting the actual molecular machineries that drive the photosynthetic process, the so-called reaction centers (RCs) is a long-standing goal in the field of artificial photosynthesis. The RCs are transmembrane enzymes that function as photochemical core of any eukaryotic or
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prokaryotic photosynthetic organism and are responsible for the highly efficient conversion of sunlight into chemical energy[2]. Among the RCs, one of the simplest and in deep investigated can be obtained from the purple non-sulphur anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter (R.) sphaeroides that is used as model system in photosynthesis since early ‘70s[3]. Briefly, the RC from the purple non-sulphur anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium R. sphaeroides is a transmembrane enzyme composed by three protein subunits that form the scaffolding for several cofactors. The cofactors are organized along two almost symmetrical bra
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