Reversible and selective interconversion of hydrogen and carbon dioxide into formate by a semi-artificial formate hydrogenlyase mimic.
Sokol K., Robinson W., Oliveira AR., Zacarias S., Lee C-Y., Madden C., Bassegoda A., Hirst J., Pereira IAC., Reisner E.
The biological formate hydrogenlyase (FHL) complex links a formate dehydrogenase (FDH) to a hydrogenase (H2ase) and produces H2 and CO2 from formate via mixed-acid fermenta-tion in Escherichia coli. Here, we describe an electrochemical and a colloidal semi-artificial FHL system that consists of an FDH and a H2ase immobilized on conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) as an electron relay. These in vitro systems benefit from the efficient wiring of a highly active enzyme pair and allow for the reversible conversion of formate to H2 and CO2 under ambient temperature and pressure. Such hybrid systems pro-vide a template for the design of analogous synthetic catalysts and surpass the FHL complex in vivo by storing and releasing H2 on demand by interconverting CO2/H2 and formate with minimal bias in either direction.