Future Directions

An attractive aspect of the biohybrid devices discussed in this book is that they employ a low-cost biodegradable photovoltaic material that is abundantly available and can easily be extracted from the photosynthetic organisms with no harm to the environment. At present these devices are under laboratory research and quite far from commercialization mainly due to the modest photoelectric performance and the stability issues. The photoelectric performance has a great scope for improvement by developing new device architectures employing new electrode and electrolyte materials envisaging the photosynthetic energy transfer and electron transfer pathways possible. With a deeper understanding of the photonic and electronic mechanisms in different protein biohyribs, there is huge scope to expand their application beyond simple bioelectrochemical cells to a whole range of protein-powered optoelectronic and bioelectronic devices. This chapter throws light on some of the future directions, both at a fundamental conceptual level and at a technological level, that could open new avenues for photoprotein-based biohybrids.