Closed-loop enhancement of plant photosynthesis via biomass-derived carbon dots in biohybrids
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Improving photosynthetic efficiency is pivotal for biomanufacturing and agriculture. Despite the progress on photosynthetic biohybrids integrating biocatalysts with materials, nanomaterials with increasing energy-efficiency as well as great biocompatibility and cost-effectiveness are needed. Here, we present a closed-loop strategy using biomass-derived carbon dots (CDs) for improving photosynthesis. We demonstrate that the CDs act as both light converters and photosensitizers by converting solar irradiation to red light and supplying light-excited electrons into the photosynthetic electron transfer chain. Biohybrids incorporating CDs and cyanobacteria or plant exhibited increased photosynthetic efficiency, when compared with the photosynthetic organism only. The cyanobacterial CO2-fixation rate and CO2-to-glycerol production were increased 2.4-fold and 2.2-fold, respectively, while Arabidopsis thaliana displayed a 1.8-fold increase in the fresh weight of the plant. Techno-economic analysis showed the competitive advantage of biomass-derived CDs over other nanomaterials. These CDs hold potential applications in future sustainable agriculture and solar-powered biomanufacturing.
Date Issued
2025-03-02
Date Acceptance
2025-02-20
Citation
Communications Materials, 2025, 6 (1)
ISSN
2662-4443
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Communications Materials
Volume
6
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by nc-nd/4.0/.
Identifier
10.1038/s43246-025-00763-w
Subjects
CYANOBACTERIA
CYCLE
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRON
ENERGY TRANSDUCTION
FOOD
LIGHT
Materials Science
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Science & Technology
STRATEGIES
Technology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
40
Date Publish Online
2025-03-02