Photosynthesis: Molecular Approaches to Solar Energy Conversion

In the modern world, to meet increasing energy demands we need to develop new technologies allowing us to use eco-friendly carbon-neutral energy sources. Solar energy as the most promising renewable source could be the way to solve that problem, but it is variable depending on day time and season. From this side, the understanding of photosynthesis process could be of significant help for us to develop effective strategies of solar energy capturing, conversion, and storage. Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, annually producing around 100 billion tons of dry biomass. Presently, the detailed studies of photosynthetic system structure make functional investigations of the photosynthetic process available, allowing scientists to construct artificial systems for solar energy transduction. This book summarizes exciting achievements in understanding of photosynthetic structures and mechanisms of this process made by world leaders in photosynthesis field, and contains information about modern ideas in development of revolutionary new technologies of energy conversion. Organized according to the natural sequence of events occurring during photosynthesis, the book includes information of both photosynthetic structures and mechanisms and its applications in bioenergetics issues.

Jian-Ren Shen is a Professor at the Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science, Okayama University, Japan. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Tokyo in 1990, and worked in Dr. Yorinao Inoue’s group in RIKEN Institute before becoming a full professor at Okayama University. His is a world leader in the structural biology of photosynthetic membrane protein complexes, and solved the high-resolution structure of photosystem II from cyanobacteria.Kimiyuki Satoh is an Emeritus Professor at Okayama University, Japan. He earned the PhD degree from the University of Tokyo in 1972, and is the first one to isolate and identify the photosystem II reaction center. His contributions to photosynthesis research have been recognized by a number of awards including the Finsen Medal from the International Union of Photobiology. He was a Consulting Editor for the Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration series during 1999-2005.Allakhverdiev S.I. is the Head of Controlled Photobiosynthesis Laboratory at the Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and several other affiliations at different institutes. He received his PhD from the Institute of Biophysics, USSR in 1984, and worked in many world-leading laboratories including Robert Carpentier, Norio Murata, etc. Allakhverdiev S.I. has authored (or co-authored) more than 350 research papers, 37 book chapters, 7 patents and 9 books.