The
biotic–abiotic photosynthetic system integrating inorganic
light absorbers with whole-cell biocatalysts innovates the way for
sustainable solar-driven chemical transformation. Fundamentally, the
electron transfer at the biotic–abiotic interface, which may
induce biological response to photoexcited electron stimuli, plays
an essential role in solar energy conversion. Herein, we selected
an electro-active bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 as a model, which constitutes a hybrid photosynthetic system
with a self-assembled CdS semiconductor, to demonstrate unique biotic–abiotic
interfacial behavior. The photoexcited electrons from CdS nanoparticles
can reverse the extracellular electron transfer (EET) chain within S. oneidensis MR-1, realizing the activation of a
bacterial catalytic network with light illumination. As compared with
bare S. oneidensis MR-1, a significant
upregulation of hydrogen yield (711-fold), ATP, and reducing equivalent
(NADH/NAD+) was achieved in the S. oneidensis MR-1-CdS under visible light. This work sheds light on the fundamental
mechanism and provides design guidelines for biotic–abiotic
photosynthetic systems.