APSIM · Artificial Photosynthetic Stomatocyte for Intelligent Movement

Artificial Photosynthetic Stomatocyte for Intelligent Movement

The discovery of the first centimeter-sized chemical motors has brought great interest in the field of catalytic micro/nanomotors fabrication. By harnessing chemical energy from active fuels, nanomotors with the long-range and sustainable movement have been achieved, promising their biomedical application. Nevertheless, despite the progress, two major problems are still prevalent for traditional nanomotors: 1) the potential side effect of active fuels in biomedical applications, and 2) limited motion control due to the interference of Brownian motion. By keeping these challenges in mind, our ultimate goal was to exploit artificial photosynthetic reactions to drive the motion of stomatocyte nanomotor, which has not been explored before. Using biocompatible chemicals and abundant solar energy to drive the motion will enable a nanomachine that can perform tasks at the nanometer scale. Our design is immobilizing water oxidation catalyst and water-reduction catalyst on the inner stomach and outer surface of the stomatocyte, respectively. The organometallic complex is attached to the surface of the stomatocyte to connect the two half-reactions for motion. The main objectives of this project were divided into three steps, which correspond to respective work packages (WPs). The following are the brief objectives of the project. • Objective 1: Drive translational motion to control the speed of stomatocyte nanomotor by PS II catalyzed water-oxidation (WP1). • Objective 2: Drive rotational motion to control the direction of stomatocyte nanomotor by GQD-catalyzed water-reduction (WP2). • Objective 3: Couple the translational and rotational motion to drive intelligent movement of stomatocyte nanomotor by artificial photosynthetic water splitting (WP3). We envision, the as-fabricated nanomotors driven by biocompatible chemicals and abundant solar energy, to be optimized as carriers for cargo delivery and as nanoreactors for solar energy conversion. Moreover, the results of this project challenged the hydrophilic understanding of polyethylene glycol (PEG), one of the most widely used polymers in the biomedical field. This allowed 1) the adaptive loading of molecular probes onto the nanomotors for cargo delivery, and 2) the efficient loading of molecular catalysts and photosensitizer for next-generation photosynthetic nanomotors. These results will benefit society with a great impact on the biomedical field and renewable energy conversion in the future.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union