Differential graphene functions on two photosynthetic microbes

Anirban Bose, Sanhita Ray, Vivek Kumar Singh, Abesh Banerjee, Chumki Nayak, Achintya Singha, Amartya Bhattacharyya, Dipankar Chattopadhyay, Amlan Chakrabarti, Santanu Das and Anjan K Dasgupta

Abstract

Graphene, a Dirac material, permits the free flow of electrons on its surface. The interface of graphene with different bio-materials is the emerging interest. In this paper, we describe interfaces of graphene variants and two photosynthetic species (belonging to the class of alpha-proteobacteria), Rhodobacter sp and Rhodopseudomonas sp, both using photon capture in their respective electron transport process. When grown on graphene oxide (or its exfoliated forms obtained after microwave treatment) the bacterial species show differential pigment excretion patterns, which is a measure of their photon driven electron-transport-chain activity. The responses are measured by hydrodynamic diameters of pigment clusters and steady-state quantum yield and time-dependent fluorescent emission patterns. The responses carry fingerprints of graphene-specific effects on the respective microbes. Interestingly, there is a reciprocal relationship between the size of the pigment cluster formed in the presence of graphene (which varies for the two microbes) and the rate of fluorescence emission change. The report opens up the possibility of developing photo-sensing and light-harvesting devices exploiting the richness and diversity of this interface of the free-flowing electrons of this 2D-material (graphene) and these cells, undergoing graphene-specific dynamics of pigmentation.