The concept of photochemical enzyme models - State of the art

Several illustrative examples of photocatalytic processes mimicking the functional properties of natural systems are provided in this short review including some typical applications of artificial photoenzymes in the fields of green chemistry, solar energy conversion, photomedicine and life-sciences. Combining enzyme-like reactivity to enable stepwise synthetic cascade reactions has meanwhile also been demonstrated, which now opens new avenues for the design of artificial metabolic pathways controlled and driven by light. The creation of directly coupled photo-biocatalytic hybrid systems is also briefly discussed as a straightforward method to trigger more complex reaction sequences at the interface of light-mediated chemistry and natural processes in both cell-free systems and living organisms.