New Light-Powered Hydrogen Generator Shows Promise for Cancer Treatment
- Authors
- Yangsen Xu, Mingjian Fan, Wenjuan Yang, Yonghao Xiao, Lingting Zeng, Xiao Wu, Qinghua Xu, Chenliang Su, Qianjun He
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Year
- 2021
- DOI
- 10.1002/adma.202101455
- Study Type
- Mouse
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Cancer
- Body System
- Oncological
TL;DR
Researchers have developed a new material that can efficiently generate hydrogen from water using near-infrared light, which could be used for solar energy and treating cancer without drugs.
Key Finding
A carbon and potassium-doped material successfully produced hydrogen gas when exposed to near-infrared light and demonstrated anti-cancer effects in a mouse tumor model through combined hydrogen generation and glutathione depletion.
Summary
Researchers created a new material called red polymeric carbon nitride (RPCN) that can use near-infrared light (a type of light invisible to our eyes) to produce hydrogen gas from water. In an experiment with tumor-bearing mice, this material was able to generate hydrogen directly inside tumors while also depleting glutathione (a protective molecule cancer cells rely on), which led to cancer cell death without using traditional drugs.
Practical Takeaway
This is early-stage research in animals only, demonstrating a novel concept for using light-activated hydrogen production as a potential cancer therapy. While the results in mice are promising, this approach has not been tested in humans, and it represents a fundamentally different application of hydrogen than hydrogen water — it involves direct hydrogen generation inside tumors rather than consuming hydrogen as a beverage or supplement.
Abstract
The efficient utilization of near-infrared (NIR) light for photocatalytic hydrogen generation is vitally important to both solar hydrogen energy and hydrogen medicine, but remains a challenge at present, owing to the strict requirement of the semiconductor for high NIR responsiveness, narrow bandgap, and suitable redox potentials. Here, an NIR-active carbon/potassium-doped red polymeric carbon nitride (RPCN) is achieved for by using a similar-structure dopant as the melamine (C3H6N6) precursor with the solid KCl. The homogeneous and high incorporation of carbon and potassium remarkably narrows the bandgap of carbon nitride (1.7 eV) and endows RPCN with a high NIR-photocatalytic activity for H2 evolution from water at the rate of 140 µmol h−1 g−1 under NIR irradiation (700 nm ≤ λ ≤ 780 nm), and the apparent quantum efficiency is high as 0.84% at 700 ± 10 nm (and 13% at 500 ± 10 nm). A proof-of-concept experiment on a tumor-bearing mouse model verifies RPCN as being capable of intratumoral NIR-photocatalytic hydrogen generation and simultaneous glutathione deprivation for safe and high-efficacy drug-free cancer therapy. The results shed light on designing efficient photocatalysts to capture the full spectrum of solar energy, and also pioneer a new pathway to develop NIR photocatalysts for hydrogen therapy of major diseases.