UC Davis

Intimate coupling of microbial extracellular electron transfer (EET) and photoelectrochemical processes is an emerging research area with great potential to circumvent many disadvantages associated with traditional techniques that depend on independent microbial or photocatalysis treatment. Microbial EET processes involve microorganism oxidation of extracellular electron donors for respiration and synchronous reduction of extracellular electron acceptors to form an integrated respiratory chain. Coupled microbial EET-photoelectrochemical technologies greatly improve energy conversion efficiency providing both economic and environmental benefits. Among substitutes for semiconductor photocatalysts, cadmium sulfide nanoparticles (CdS NPs) possess several attractive properties. Specifically, CdS NPs have suitable electrical conductivity, large specific surface area, visible light-driven photocatalysis capability and robust biocompatibility, enabling them to promote hybrid microbial-photoelectrochemical processes. This review highlights recent advances in intimately coupled CdS NPs-microbial extracellular electron transfer systems and examines the mechanistic pathways involved in photoelectrochemical transformations. Finally, the prospects for emerging applications utilizing hybrid CdS NPs-based microbial-photoelectrochemical technologies are assessed. As such, this review provides a rigorous fundamental analysis of electron transport dynamics for hybrid CdS NPs-microbial photoelectrochemical processes and explores the applicability of engineered CdS NPs-biohybrids for future applications, such as in environmental remediation and clean-energy production.