Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, working with scientists from Japan's Photon Science Innovation Center and Tohoku University, have developed a nano-biohybrid material that produces hydrogen peroxide using only sunlight, air and water. The work appears on the cover of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Hydrogen peroxide is widely used for disinfection, bleaching and whitening, but conventional industrial production is energy-intensive and requires complex catalytic systems. The new approach operates at ambient temperature and pressure with inexpensive, abundant materials.
The hybrid consists of layered nanosheets roughly 200 nanometers thick — about 500 times thinner than a human hair. One component is bismuth oxychloride, a synthetic semiconductor. The other is patches of purple membrane derived from halophilic archaea, salt-loving microorganisms whose membrane proteins act as natural light-driven proton pumps.
When illuminated, the purple membrane captures light energy and drives the movement of protons and electrons at the interface with the semiconductor. This interfacial charge transfer enables the bismuth oxychloride to reduce oxygen from air and oxidize water, forming hydrogen peroxide.
The biohybrid generated more than five times as much hydrogen peroxide as the semiconductor alone. Fabrication and characterization were carried out at Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science user facility, using advanced electron microscopy.
Beyond peroxide synthesis, the system simultaneously converts ethylene glycol, a low-cost industrial chemical, into higher-value products including glycolaldehyde, glyoxal and formic acid. The researchers say the nanoarchitectonics strategy — assembling nanoscale building blocks into functional architectures — can be extended to other targets such as fertilizer and fuel components.
Lead author Jinhyeong Jang, a postdoctoral appointee at Argonne, describes nanoarchitectonics as one of the most important technologies of the 21st century, alongside artificial intelligence and quantum information science. The team plans to continue exploring new chemical and materials applications.
The study demonstrates that carefully designed nano-bio interfaces can direct specific chemical reactions under mild conditions, offering a potential route to more sustainable chemical manufacturing.
Layered nano-biohybrid uses sunlight, air and water to make hydrogen peroxide
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