(439a) Enzyme Driven Synthesis of High-Performance Heterostructured Photocatalysts

Quantum confined nanomaterials are at the core of most photocatalysts due to the superior functional properties exhibited by these materials when compared to their bulk counterparts. However, conventional nanomaterial syntheses often involve high temperatures, organic solvents, and multi-step processing, which limits the scalability of their production. In contrast, nature synthesizes nanomaterials under low temperature, aqueous conditions through the enzymatic processes including biomineralization. Our focus has been to create alternative green synthesis pathways while maintaining functional performance. This is achieved by understanding and controlling the nanocrystal growth mechanism, and through minimization of the system complexity down to isolating the single enzyme responsible for inducing crystal growth in solution. We then produce highly active materials via low temperature, aqueous phase, post-synthetic processing to create photocatalysts that are comparable to, or outperform, those made through conventional syntheses. In this talk I will focus on our work in cadmium sulfide-based hydrogen evolution photocatalysts, in which we have self-assembled cadmium sulfide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites and cadmium sulfide/zinc sulfide core/shell nanocrystal photocatalysts both with hydrogen evolution rates comparable to the conventionally synthesized materials.