Photosynthetic Electrons Harvesting from Illuminated Algae Suspension

 
Members involved:
Frédéric LEMAITRE, Manon GUILLE-COLLIGNON, Jérôme DELACOTTE, Olivier BURIEZ, Eric LABBE
 
 
(See our publications below)

This project is devoted to the electrochemically-assisted diverting of electrons from photosynthesis. It notably aims at maintaining the photosynthetic efficiency under relatively high light conditions by the mean of electrochemical techniques for analytical (understanding of involved mechanisms) and preparative (dioxygen production / carbon dioxide conversion, plant cell lifetime) purposes. Indeed, the intrinsic saturation of photosynthesis leads to the formation of reactive species which may damage the photosynthetic chain. A relevant strategy thus consists in working with intact biological systems like algae and rerouting the overflow of electrons as an amenable photocurrent through the use of a collecting electrode/redox mediator tandem. However, this objective needs a tight compromise between the extraction yield and the incident light, i.e. minimizing the photoinhibition and maintaining algae alive because the photosynthetic electron extraction should lead to short-circuit the photosynthetic chain if maximizing the produced current. In this respect, many sub-strategies have to be developed. First of all, adapted mutants algae can be designed for a facilitated access to the extraction site for the redox mediator. Moreover, another critical issue is the nature of the electron carrier. Quinones look appropriate for such a purpose but they may act as “double agents”, i.e. they readily interact with the photosynthetic chain but also behave as poisons at long times. Therefore, designing functionalized quinones and new bio-inspired mediators are also considered. It therefore requires that structure-activity relationship of the exogenous quinones is better understood.


Our publications
:

2019

Diverting photosynthetic electrons from suspensions of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae - New insights using an electrochemical well device Article de journal

A Sayegh; G Longatte; O Buriez; F -A Wollman; M Guille-Collignon; E Labbé; J Delacotte; F Lemaître

Electrochimica Acta, 304 , p. 465 - 473, 2019, ISSN: 0013-4686.

2018

Investigation of photocurrents resulting from a living unicellular algae suspension with quinones over time Article de journal

G Longatte; A Sayegh; J Delacotte; F Rappaport; F -A Wollman; M Guille-Collignon; F Lemaître

Chemical Science, 9 (43), p. 8271–8281, 2018.

2017

Electrochemical Harvesting of Photosynthetic Electrons from Unicellular Algae Population at the Preparative Scale by Using 2,6-dichlorobenzoquinone Article de journal

G Longatte; F Rappaport; F -A Wollman; M Guille-Collignon; F Lemaître

Electrochimica Acta, 236 , p. 337–342, 2017.

Electrocatalytic Mechanism Involving Michaelis–Menten Kinetics at the Preparative Scale: Theory and Applicability to Photocurrents from a Photosynthetic Algae Suspension With Quinones Article de journal

G Longatte; M Guille-Collignon; F Lemaître

ChemPhysChem, 18 (19), p. 2643–2650, 2017.

Redesigning the QA binding site of Photosystem II allows reduction of exogenous quinones Article de journal

H -Y Fu; D Picot; Y Choquet; G Longatte; A Sayegh; J Delacotte; M Guille-Collignon; F Lemaýtre; F Rappaport; F -A Wollman

Nature Communications, 8 , 2017.

2016

Mechanism and analyses for extracting photosynthetic electrons using exogenous quinones-what makes a good extraction pathway? Article de journal

G Longatte; F Rappaport; F -A Wollman; M Guille-Collignon; F Lemaître

Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences, 15 (8), p. 969–979, 2016.