Self‐Assembly: Self‐Assembly of Metalloporphyrins into Light‐Harvesting Peptide Nanofiber Hydrogels for Solar Water Oxidation (Small 7/2014)

On page 1272, Y. S. Nam, C. B. Park, and co-workers report a unique approach that applies peptide-based self-assembly to the design of nanoscale scaffolds for synthetic pigments towards artificial photosynthesis. A self-assembled nanostructure of Fmocdiphenylalanine is utilized as a biomimetic template to assemble metalloporphyrins into efficient light-harvesting antennae. The metalloporphyrins in the light-harvesting hydrogel increase the efficiency of photocatalytic water oxidation by iridium oxide nanoparticles up to approximately 3.7 times compared to their physical mixture.