Multidisciplinary approaches to solar hydrogen

This review summarizes three different approaches to engineering systems for the solar-driven evolution of hydrogen fuel from water: molecular, nanomaterials and biomolecular. Molecular systems have the advantage of being highly amenable to modification and detailed study and have provided great insight into photophysics, electron transfer and catalytic mechanism. However, they tend to display poor stability. Systems based on nanomaterials are more robust but also are more difficult to synthesize in a controlled manner and to modify and study in detail. Biomolecular systems share many properties with molecular systems and have the advantage of displaying inherently high efficiencies for light absorption, electron-hole separation and catalysis. However, biological systems must be engineered to couple modules that capture and convert solar photons to modules that produce hydrogen fuel. Furthermore, biological systems are prone to degradation when employed in vitro. Advances that use combinations of these three tactics also are described. Multidisciplinary approaches to this problem allow scientists to take advantage of the best features of biological, molecular and nanomaterials systems provided that the components can be coupled for efficient function.