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

In the last years, many strategies have been developed to benefit from oxygenic photosynthesis in the present context of renewable energies. To achieve this, bioelectricity may be produced by using photosynthetic components involved in anodic or cathodic compartments. In this respect, harvesting photosynthetic electrons from living biological systems appears to be an encouraging approach. However it raises the question of the most suitable electrochemical device. In this work, we describe and analyze the performances of an electrochemical device based on a millimeter sized well involving a gold surface as a working electrode. Photocurrents were generated by suspensions of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae using quinones as mediators under different experimental conditions. Chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry measurements gave insight into the use of this device to investigate important issues (harvesting and poisoning by quinones, photoinactivation…). Furthermore, by introducing a kinetic model originally developed for homogeneous catalytic systems, the kinetics of the electron diverting from this system (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae + 2,6-DCBQ + miniaturized setup) can be estimated. All these results demonstrate that this experimental configuration is suitable for future works devoted to the choice of the best parameters in terms of long lasting performances.