Bacterial cellulose membrane supported three-dimensionally dispersed silver nanoparticles used as membrane electrode for oxygen reduction reaction in phosphate buffered saline

•AgNP/BC membrane was synthesized with a facile in situ growth method.•AgNP/BC membrane was directly used as cathodic electrode for ORR in PBS.•AgNP/BC showed good catalytic activity to ORR and tolerance to glucose.

A novel bacterial cellulose (BC) membrane supported silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was synthesized with a facile in situ growth method. The physicochemical properties of AgNP/BC were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results demonstrate that AgNPs with diameters of 10–20 nm were anchored throughout the three-dimensional network of BC membrane. The as-prepared AgNP/BC membrane was used as cathodic electrode to investigate its catalytic activity to oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) for the first time. As a result, the maximum current density obtained with AgNP/BC was −3.94 mA cm−2, which was higher than Ag electrode and AgNP. Besides, the maximum current density of AgNP/BC only decreased 4.3% in electrolyte with 10 mmol L−1 glucose. Such AgNP/BC membrane with advantages including biocompatibility, facile synthesis, high catalytic activity and good glucose tolerance could be valuable to ORR in implanted glucose fuel cells.