M13 Bacteriophage-Assisted Biomineralization of Copper Sulfide
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M13 Bacteriophage-Assisted Biomineralization of Copper Sulfide
Mohammed Shahriar Zaman1 and Elaine D. Haberer1,2 1 Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A. 2 Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A. ABSTRACT Combinatorial phage display with a pVIII library of M13 bacteriophage was used to identify a peptide sequence capable of recognition and mineralization of copper sulfide. The six sequences isolated from the final biopanning round were rich in basic, hydrophobic, and polar amino acids compared to the phage display library. The peptide sequence, DTRAPEIV, was used to biomineralize copper sulfide on the pVIII major coat protein thus producing linear chains of nanoparticles. Electron microscopy revealed that the phage was capable of controlling the size of the nucleated nanoparticles in an aqueous solution at room temperature and that the mineralized material was copper sulfide. Phage-templated biomineralization is a low temperature, aqueous-based approach to synthesis of copper sulfide nanoparticles with hierarchical order. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the availability of low cost, renewable energy sources capable of meeting a significant portion of global energy demands has become a concern. Energy from the sun is an abundant renewable energy source. Each day solar energy several orders of magnitude in excess of global consumption is delivered to the Earth’s surface [1]. The ability to harness the sun’s energy in an affordable, sustainable manner would drastically change the energy landscape. Unfortunately, crystalline silicon solar cells are still prohibitively expensive when compared to conventional energy sources. CdTe and Cu(In, Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin film solar cells are less expensive than crystalline silicon cells due to reduced fabrication costs, however both contain rare and possibly toxic elements (i.e. In, Ga, Te, and Se) which may limit future global production [2-4]. Alternative photovoltaic materials which are both plentiful and low cost are needed. Cu2S is a promising material candidate. Cu2S is an abundant, non-toxic, low cost semiconductor material [2-4]. Moreover, its indirect 1.2 eV bulk bandgap is near the theoretical optimum for maximum efficiency of a single junction solar cell. Historically, Cu2S-based cells have been problematic due to rapid Cu diffusion caused by the elevated temperatures used in standard material deposition techniques. In contrast to conventional deposition methods, biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, and viruses can assemble high quality nanocrystalline materials in aqueous solution, at ambient temperature and pressure. In this work, we investigate the room temperature biomineralization of copper sulfide using a M13 viral template. The M13 bacteriophage has been the focus of much research. The wild-type of this filamentous virus is approximately 880 nm in length and
6.5 nm in diameter. Twenty-seven hundred copies of the pVIII protein are located along the lengt
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