Engineering hybrid nanotube wires for high-power biofuel cells
Engineering hybrid nanotube wires for high-power biofuel cells
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DOI：
10.1038/ncomms1000
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发表时间：
2010-04-01
影响因子：
16.6
通讯作者：
Mano, Nicolas
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gao, Feng;Viry, Lucie;Mano, Nicolas
在电化学系统中，电子传递差和底物传质慢是重要的限速步骤。在生物介质中尤其如此，其中基板的浓度和扩散系数低，阻碍了小型化生物医学设备的电源系统的发展。在这项研究中，我们表明，新设计的多孔微丝组装和定向碳纳米管（CNT）组成的克服了小尺寸和大比表面积的限制。通过比较在碳纤维和CNT纤维上的盐水缓冲液中将氧电还原为水来显示它们的改进的性能。在空气中，经过几个小时的操作，我们表明，CNT微丝表现出比传统的碳纤维高十倍以上的性能。因此，在生理条件下，微型无膜葡萄糖/氧碳纳米管生物燃料电池的最大功率密度远远超过目前最先进的碳纤维生物燃料电池所获得的功率密度。
Poor electron transfer and slow mass transport of substrates are significant rate-limiting steps in electrochemical systems. It is especially true in biological media, in which the concentrations and diffusion coefficients of substrates are low, hindering the development of power systems for miniaturized biomedical devices. In this study, we show that the newly engineered porous microwires comprised of assembled and oriented carbon nanotubes (CNTs) overcome the limitations of small dimensions and large specific surface area. Their improved performances are shown by comparing the electroreduction of oxygen to water in saline buffer on carbon and CNT fibres. Under air, and after several hours of operation, we show that CNT microwires exhibit more than tenfold higher performances than conventional carbon fibres. Consequently, under physiological conditions, the maximum power density of a miniature membraneless glucose/oxygen CNT biofuel cell exceeds by far the power density obtained for the current state of art carbon fibre biofuel cells.