Biomolecules in the synthesis and assembly of materials for energy applications

Biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, peptides, and proteins are emerging as powerful chemical tools for the synthesis of inorganic nanoparticles. Specific biomolecule sequences have been isolated that afford remarkable control over the size, shape, polymorph, and hierarchical assembly of nanoparticles. Such exquisite control over nanoparticle growth and integration has already produced materials with unexpected photophysical properties and battery devices with improved performance. Continued exploration of biomolecule-mediated materials synthesis portends further advances in materials for the energy sciences. This review surveys the use of biomolecules in the synthesis and assembly of materials with a primary focus on methods that allow vast landscapes of biomolecule sequence space to be sampled simultaneously to discover unique sequence codes for new materials.