Photosynthetic organisms use alternative pigments and catalysts other than chlorophyll for light absorption
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Peer-reviewed literature demonstrates that photosynthetic organisms utilize alternative sensitizers, accessory pigments, bacteriochlorophylls, carotenoids, and catalytic complexes in addition to chlorophyll for light absorption and energy conversion.
Dye-sensitized solar cells have been of great interest in photovoltaic technology due to their capacity to convert energy at a low cost. The use of natural pigments means replacing expensive chemical synthesis processes by easily extractable pigments that are non-toxic and environmentally friendly. Although most of the pigments used for this purpose are obtained from higher plants, there are potential alternative sources that have been underexploited and have shown encouraging results, since pigments can also be obtained from organisms like bacteria, cyanobacteria, microalgae, yeast, and molds, which have the potential of being cultivated in bioreactors or optimized by biotechnological processes. The aforementioned organisms are sources of diverse sensitizers like photosynthetic pigments, accessory pigments, and secondary metabolites such as chlorophylls, bacteriochlorophylls, carotenoids, and phycobiliproteins. Moreover, retinal proteins, photosystems, and reaction centers from these organisms can also act as sensitizers. In this review, the use of natural sensitizers extracted from algae, cyanobacteria, bacteria, archaea, and fungi is assessed. The reported photoconversion efficiencies vary from 0.001 % to 4.6 % for sensitizers extracted from algae and microalgae, 0.004 to 1.67 % for bacterial sensitizers, 0.07-0.23 % for cyanobacteria, 0.09 to 0.049 % for archaea and 0.26-2.3 % for pigments from fungi.
Energy conversion of sunlight by photosynthetic organisms has changed Earth and life on it. Photosynthesis arose early in Earth's history, and the earliest forms of photosynthetic life were almost certainly anoxygenic (non-oxygen evolving). The invention of oxygenic photosynthesis and the subsequent rise of atmospheric oxygen approximately 2.4 billion years ago revolutionized the energetic and enzymatic fundamentals of life. The repercussions of this revolution are manifested in novel biosynthetic pathways of photosynthetic cofactors and the modification of electron carriers, pigments, and existing and alternative modes of photosynthetic carbon fixation. The evolutionary history of photosynthetic organisms is further complicated by lateral gene transfer that involved photosynthetic components as well as by endosymbiotic events. An expanding wealth of genetic information, together with biochemical, biophysical, and physiological data, reveals a mosaic of photosynthetic features. In combination, these data provide an increasingly robust framework to formulate and evaluate hypotheses concerning the origin and evolution of photosynthesis.
Photosynthetic proteins have been used as an active material in design of organic solar cells. Traditional organic solar cells have the limitation of not being able to absorb light in the visible-NIR region of the solar spectrum. This region corresponds to over 70% power of the total solar radiation. Using molecular proteins obtained from nature these limitations can be overcome. Biological photosynthetic complexes contain reaction centers with a quantum yield of >95% and a bandgap of less than l.leV allowing absorption in the 600-11 00nm visible-NIR range. Two types of photosynthetic complexe
The four-electron oxidation of water by photosynthetic organisms, carried out by the Oxygen Evolving Complex (OEC) of Photosystem II (PS II), is a process essential for aerobic life.
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