Substratesa	Products	Biochemical machinery	Light absorbers	Illumination condition	IQYs	Reference
CO2	Biomass	Plant Cucumis sativus	Photosystems	620 ∼ 640 nm	9.3%b	7
CO2	Biomass	Plant C. sativus	Photosystems	516 nm	7.2%b	7
CO2	Biomass	37 C3 plant species	Photosystems	Halogen lamp (600 μmol m−2s−1)	10.6%c	56
CO2 and N2	Biomass	Blue-green algae Anabaena cylindrica Lemm	Photosystems	400–700 nm (1800 LUX)	1.7% (N2) d 17.7% (CO2) d	9, 57
CO2 and N2	Biomass	Natural root nodule systems	Photosystems	Natural sunlight	0.8∼1.9% (N2) d 9.9∼27.5% (CO2) d	7, 10, 56, 59
CO2	Acetic acid	Bacterium Moorella thermoacetica	CdS nanoparticles	Simulated sunlight or LED (2.5 W/cm2)	2.44±0.62% e, f 85 ±12% e,g	20
CO2	Acetic acid	Bacterium M. thermoacetica	Au nanoclusters	320 ∼ 610 nm (2 W/m2)	2.86±0.38% e	29
CO2	Biomass	Bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris	CdS nanoparticles and photosystems	Fluorescent tubes (80 W/cm2)	5.98% h,i 4.31% h, j	60
N2	NH3 and H2	Protein MoFe nitrogenase	CdS nanorods	405 nm (3.5 W/cm2)	3.3% (N2) 20.2% (HERk)	21
N2	NH3 and H2	Bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii with histidine-tagged MoFe nitrogenase	Au nanocrystals	400 nm (1.6 mM/cm2)	1.4% l, m	61
N2	Biomass	Bacterium R. palustris	CdS nanoparticles and photosystems	Fluorescent tubes (80 W/cm2)	5.42% h, i 1.04% h, j	36
N2	NH3 and H2	Bacterium A. vinelandii with histidine-tagged MoFe nitrogenase	CdS quantum dots, CdS@ZnS quantum dots	400 nm (1.6 mM/cm2)	1.2% l, n	62
CO2 and N2	Biomass	Bacterium X. autotrophicus	CdTe quantum dots	505 nm (0.09 mW/cm2)	7.1±1.1% (N2) 47.2±7.3% (CO2)	This work

^aOnly the oxidants that are reduced in the photo catalytic reactions are listed here

^bReported based on the number of CO₂ molecules fixed per absorbed photon

^cReported based on the number of O₂ molecules released per absorbed photon

^dDetailed calculations are available in Supplementary Note 3

^eIt has been reported that the presumed hole scavenger cysteine may contribute significantly to the yielded CH₃COOH due to the specific metabolism in M. thermoacetica⁶³, which may lower the reported quantum yields

^fLow-intensity simulated sunlight

^gLED light source with 435∼485 nm illumination with a 4-fold increase of Cd loading

^hQY is not readily available, the listed value is the reported photosynthetic efficiency (PE), which is defined as the ratio of the energy stored as biomass to the net energy input of both absorbed light and organic substrate consumption, in the original literature. Additional organic carbon sources (30 mM 4-aminobenzoic acid and 45 mM DL-malic acid) were added and assimilated by microbes

ⁱCdS-R. palustris hybrid, in which both CdS and the phototrophic R. palustris function as light-absorbers

^jPhototrophic R. palustris alone as the light-absorber

^kHER, hydrogen evolution reaction

^lCalculated for the co-production of NH₃ and H₂. The value reported here is calculated based on a cross-sectional area of 0.785 cm² (1 cm diameter) for the light-illuminated area, which is different from the literature value of 0.52 cm²

^mEstimated based on a 92% cellular uptake of Au nanoclusters with the assumption that the other intracellular energy source does not contribute to the NH₃ formation within the 5-hour experiment

ⁿRecalculated based on a total absorption of the provided quantum dots with the assumption that the other intracellular energy source does not contribute to the NH₃ formation within the 4-hour experiment.