Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5149680 | Journal of Power Sources | 2017 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Lactate/O2 biofuel cells (BFC) can have high theoretical energy densities due to high solubility and high fuel energy density; however, they are rarely studied in comparison to glucose BFCs. In this paper, lactate oxidase (LOx) was coupled with a ferrocene-based redox polymer (dimethylferrocene-modified linear polyethylenimine, FcMe2-LPEI) as the bioanode and laccase (Lc) connected to pyrene-anthracene modified carbon nanotubes (PyrAn-MWCNT) to facilitate the direct electron transfer (DET) at the biocathode. Both electrodes were evaluated in two BFC configurations using different concentrations of lactate, in the range found in sweat (0-40 mM). A single compartment BFC evaluated at pH 5.6 provided an open circuit potential (OCP) of 0.68 V with a power density of 61.2 μWcmâ2. On the other hand, a microfluidic BFC operating under the same conditions resulted in an OCP of 0.67 V, although an increase in the power density, increasing to 305 μW cmâ2, was observed. Upon changing the pH to 7.4 in only the anolyte, its performance was further increased to 0.73 V and 404 μW cmâ2, respectively. This work reports the first microfluidic lactate/oxygen enzymatic BFC and shows the importance of microfluidic flow in high performing BFCs where lactate is utilized as the fuel and O2 is the final electron acceptor.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemistry
Electrochemistry
Authors
Ricardo A. Escalona-Villalpando, Russell C. Reid, Ross D. Milton, L.G. Arriaga, Shelley D. Minteer, Janet Ledesma-GarcÃa,