Environmental pollution and health problems created by fossil fuels have led to the development of alternative energies such as solar and wind energies, hydroelectric power, and green hydrogen. The use of biohybrid materials in the development of this type of alternative energies is recent. Biohybrid materials are a unique type of advanced materials that have a biological component that can be a biomolecule or a whole cell and an abiotic or non-biological component that can be a ceramic, a synthetic polymer, or a metal, among others. They have applications in different fields that range from construction (such as bioconcrete) to catalysis (such as artificial enzymes). There are examples in the literature in which bacteria are hybridized with reduced graphene oxide or manganese oxide to catalyze the oxygen evolution of the electrochemical water splitting reaction that produces green hydrogen. The focus of this dissertation is to synthesize efficient biohybrid catalysts following a whole cell approach using electroactive bacteria as the biological component and metallic precursors that form particles ranging from single atoms, nanoclusters, and nanoparticles as the abiotic component. The Fe molecule that is part of the heme group of C-type cytochromes in the outer membrane of Geobacter sulfurreducens acted as the reduction center that allowed the synthesis and hybridization of the metals with the bacteria. Single atom metal catalyst of Ir, Pt, Ru, Cu, and Pd were synthesized and demonstrated a bifunctional catalytic activity towards the hydrogen evolution reaction and the oxygen evolution reaction. Ni single atoms were also synthesized with excellent activity in the water splitting reactions making this biohybrid catalyst very efficient but also green, as Ni is an abundant and cheap metal. Pd nanoclusters with size-control were synthesized by controlling the metal concentration, dosing, and incubation times and were tested in the electrochemical water splitting. Overall, the findings of these studies provide new knowledge on the field of biohybrid materials by contributing with novel methodologies for the synthesis of these materials and the application in the green hydrogen production with high efficiencies.

Ces travaux de thèse pluridisciplinaires à l‘interface entre biocatalyse et nanomatériaux visent la conception de matériaux biohybrides innovants par assemblage dans des conditions douces de matériaux inorganiques de type hydroxydes doubles lamellaires (HDL) avec des enzymes. La première partie de ce mémoire est consacrée à la caractérisation des interactions physico-chimiques entre les HDL et la fructose-6-phosphate aldolase (FSA) catalysant la formation stéréosélective de liaisons C-C pour conduire à des polyols chiraux. Les structures lamellaires HDL permettent un confinement efficace de systèmes enzymatiques grâce à leur structure bidimensionnelle poreuse, leurs propriétés physico-chimiques favorables à l‘échange ionique et leur biocompatibilité. Différentes stratégies d‘immobilisation de la FSA dans des matrices d‘HDL ont été explorées, le taux d‘immobilisation et l‘activité biocatalytique étant fortement dépendant de la méthode d‘assemblage et de la nature des phases HDL. Le taux d‘immobilisation de l‘enzyme obtenu par coprécipitaton est supérieur à celui obtenu par adsorption. Dans une deuxième partie, un bioréacteur a été élaboré par un assemblage hiérarchisé constitué de la FSA, de nanoplaquettes d‘HDL et de billes de polysaccharide, ce dernier jouant le rôle de matrice macrostructurante. De façon notable, le taux d‘encapsulation de l‘enzyme dans la matrice macroscopique est amélioré lorsque le biocatalyseur est pré-encapsulé dans les nanoplaquettes d‘HDL. Ceci est attribué aux interactions électrostatiques favorables entre les chaînes de polysaccharide et les HDL, facilitant une charge de matière plus importante. L‘efficacité catalytique du bioréacteur obtenu et sa recyclabilité ont été démontrés. Dans la troisième partie de cette thèse, nous décrivons pour la première fois la conception de bionanoréacteurs enzymes@HDL par co-immobilisation de systèmes bi- ou tétra-enzymatiques dans les HDL permettant de réaliser des cascades multienzymatiques biomimétiques. L‘immobilisation des différentes enzymes prises séparément a d‘abord été optimisée afin de déterminer les conditions de co-immobilisation et de réaliser les cascades biocatalytiques en phase hétérogène. Ces bionanoréacteurs, dont nous avons démontré la recyclabilité, ont été appliqués pour la synthèse de sucres phosphorylés de série D. Enfin, une cascade multienzymatique a été conçue de novo en solution aqueuse et optimisée pour synthétiser différents sucres phosphorylés rares de série L. / This multidisciplinary thesis at the biocatalysis/nanomaterial interface perfectly aims at designing innovative biohybrid materials by the assembly of inorganic materials the Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH) with enzymes under mild conditions. The first part of this thesis is devoted to the characterization of physico-chemical interactions between the LDH and the fructose-6-phosphate aldolase (FSA) catalyzing the stereoselective C-C bond formation to provide chiral polyols. LDH structures allow the effective confinement of enzymatic systems thanks to their opened two-dimensional structure as well as their chemical surface properties at the nanoscale and their biocompatibility. The FSA immobilization in different LDH matrices by different methods was studied. Biocatalytic activity is highly dependent on the method of assembling, modulating the final amount of FSA. The retaining activity rate of co-precipitated material was higher than that obtained for the adsorbed enzyme. In a second part, a bionanoreactor was developed based on a hierarchized assembly of FSA, LDH nanoplatelets and polysaccharide beads acting as a macrostructuring matrices. Significantly, the encapsulated enzyme rate in the beads was improved when the biocatalyst was pre-encapsulated in LDH nanoplatelets. This is attributed to favorable electrostatic interactions between the polysaccharide chains and LDH, facilitating a higher catalyst loading. The catalytic efficiency of the prepared bioreactor and its recyclability were demonstrated. In the third part of this thesis, we describe for the first time the design of bionanoreactors ―enzymes@LDH‖ by co-immobilisation of two and four enzymes in LDH allowing biomimetic multienzymatic cascades. We first studied the immobilization of the different enzymes taken separately. Then we worked on the optimization of the biocatalytic cascades in heterogeneous phase. These bionanoreactors, for which we have shown the recyclability, have been applied to the synthesis of D-series phosphorylated sugars. Finally, a multienzymatic cascade was de novo designed in aqueous homogeneous solution. It was optimized for the synthesis of rare L-phosphorylated sugars.