The journey toward microbial photo-electrochemical biosensors: harnessing photosynthetic organisms for next-generation environmental sensing

The urgent need for cost-effective and reliable environmental monitoring systems has sparked interest in developing innovative biosensing platforms. Among these, microbial photoelectrochemical biosensors, which leverage the unique properties of photosynthetic microorganisms, have emerged as promising tools for environmental analysis. This perspective examines recent advances in microbial photoelectrochemical biosensor technology, focusing on the fundamental mechanisms of photosynthetic organisms and their integration with materials science. The current limitations in the implementation of microbial photoelectrochemical biosensors will be discussed, highlighting emerging solutions through nanomaterial integration and exploring how these biological systems can be engineered to detect environmental pollutants. Accordingly, a roadmap to transform these biological systems into practical environmental monitoring tools is presented, paving the way to unprecedented opportunities for the development of sustainable, sensitive, and targeted microbial biosensing platforms for real-world pollutant detection. To fully utilize the promise of these next-generation biosensing platforms, future research should concentrate on enhancing signal transduction and its stability over time, optimizing biointerface engineering, and encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration.