Computational materials design is combined with synthesis and electrochemical characterization to propose nine oxide semiconductors as water-splitting photocatalysts.
Photosynthetic centers have orders of magnitude less conversion efficiency than commercial photovoltaics. Fuel from algae requires photobioreactors to avoid being overgrown by wildtype so prohibitively expensive. Synthetic photochemical systems are all plagued with stability issues. If you separate photovoltaics from electrochemistry you can exchange a degraded part of the system instead of having to discard everything.
Photosynthetic centers have orders of magnitude less conversion efficiency than commercial photovoltaics. Fuel from algae requires photobioreactors to avoid being overgrown by wildtype so prohibitively expensive. Synthetic photochemical systems are all plagued with stability issues. If you separate photovoltaics from electrochemistry you can exchange a degraded part of the system instead of having to discard everything.