A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new material that combines inorganic material with biological components to produce hydrogen peroxide more efficiently.

Hydrogen peroxide is commonly used for disinfecting, bleaching and whitening in a variety of settings from manufacturing to the medicine cabinet. However, producing it is expensive and energy intensive. The research, which also included scientists from Japan's Photon Science Innovation Center and Tohoku University, used a technology called nanoarchitectonics to convert sunlight, air and water into the valuable chemical. The results are detailed in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Nanoarchitectonics uses nanoscale building blocks to assemble materials into functional architectures, often drawing inspiration from living systems.

"Nanoarchitectonics is on par with artificial intelligence and quantum information science as one of the most important technologies of the 21^st century," said Jinhyeong Jang, a postdoctoral appointee at Argonne and lead author of the paper. "Our work demonstrates that we can use it to tune living systems for functional purposes."

The material the researchers developed is based on layered nanosheets about 200 nanometers thick, approximately 500 times thinner than a human hair. The layers form a hybrid system: bismuth oxychloride, a synthetic semiconducting material, combines with patches of a purple membrane made from a naturally occurring, light-absorbing biological material derived from salt-loving microorganisms called archaea.

When light shines on this material, the purple membrane acts like a biological solar panel, capturing light energy. It then drives the movement of protons and electrons at the interface with the bismuth oxychloride. This process helps the semiconductor convert oxygen from the air and water into hydrogen peroxide. The hybrid material produced over five times more hydrogen peroxide than the semiconductor alone.

"Our system operates at ambient conditions and uses only inexpensive, abundant materials," said Elena Rozhkova, a scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. "If we were to do the same reaction industrially, it would require high energy input and more complex catalytic systems. Our approach shows how carefully designed nano-bio interfaces can direct chemical reactions under mild conditions."

The nanosheets were fabricated at the CNM, and the team studied their properties using the CNM's advanced electron microscopy tools.

Many semiconductors, including the bismuth oxychloride used here, are known catalysts, while purple membranes of archaea are very robust, neatly organized biological devices.

"But simply combining these properties does not on its own create the catalysis we want," Rozhkova said. "The key is designing their interface to guide how charge moves and to drive a specific chemical reaction."

In the latest experiment, the researchers developed an approach that uses multiple parts of the catalytic reaction to add value. In parallel with hydrogen peroxide production, the system converts ethylene glycol, a low-cost industrial chemical, into more valuable products, including glycolaldehyde, glyoxal and formic acid.

"Nanoarchitectonics is a versatile, exciting approach that can be applied to a variety of challenges, such as making fertilizer and fuel components," Jang said. "Driven by a spirit of innovation, we will continue exploring this chemistry and seeking new applications across chemical and materials systems that address national priorities in manufacturing and advanced technologies."

This research was funded by DOE's Office of Science. Co-authors with Jang and Rozhkova are Yuzi Liu and Jianguo Wen at Argonne; Haruki Meguro at the Photon Science Innovation Center; and Tetsuya Nakamura at the Photon Science Innovation Center and Tohoku University.