Chloroplast biosolar cell & self-powered herbicide monitoring

Utilizing chloroplasts in biosolar cells offers a sustainable approach for sunlight harvesting. However, the limited electrochemical communication between these biological entities and an electrode surface has lead to complex device setups, hindering their application in the field. Herein, a cross-linker enables simple photoanode architecture with enhanced photoexcited electron transfer between chloroplasts and abiotic electrodes. The improved “wiring” of the photosynthetic electron transfer chain resulted in a five-fold increase in biophotocurrent. The biophotoanode is applied in a Pt-free, portable biosolar cell allowing the in-situ self-powered monitoring of diuron within limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency.