Kinetic study of homogeneously mediated electrode reactions in glucose-based biofuel cells.

The use of biofuel cells (BFC) is a promising approach to generate electricity. BFC can be successfully applied to achieve long-term autonomous operation of miniaturized implantable Body-Area-Network (BAN) devices. BAN devices are important for the development of future healthcare technologies. Glucose-based enzymatic BFC are a good option to power BAN devices due to the high availability of the fuel (glucose) in body fluids. Moreover, it shows excellent catalytic selectivity and good chemical safety. In this paper, the design of a glucose-based enzymatic BFC demonstrator is described and the performance of both the individual electrodes and the complete cell is evaluated. The measured maximum power output of the designed BFC-demonstrator was 5.8 µWcm-2. Additionally, the kinetics of the detailed energy conversion processes, occurring inside the BFC system, have been investigated from both an experimental and theoretical point of view. The proposed model describes the glucose oxidation at the anode of a BFC and includes the diffusion for all (electro-) chemically active species. The modeling results are qualitatively and quantitatively in good agreement with the experimental results