The potential uses for wearable electronic devices continue to increase, especially for medical and athletic monitoring. Such devices require the development of a reliable and efficient energy source that can easily be integrated into the human body. Using “biofuels” present in human organic liquids has long been a promising avenue.
Scientists from the Département de chimie moléculaire (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes), who specialize in bioelectrochemistry, decided to collaborate with an American team from UC San Diego, who are experts in nanomachines, biosensors, and nanobioelectronics. Together they developed a flexible conductive material consisting of carbon nanotubes, crosslinked polymers, and enzymes joined by stretchable connectors that are directly printed onto the material through screen-printing .
The biofuel cell, which follows deformations in the skin, produces electrical energy through the reduction of oxygen and the oxidation of the lactate present in perspiration. Once applied to the arm, it uses a voltage booster to continuously power an LED. It is relatively simple and inexpensive to produce, with the primary cost being the production of the enzymes that transform the compounds found in sweat. The researchers are now seeking to amplify the voltage provided by the biofuel cell in order to power larger portable devices.
Study of the biofuel cell’s mechanical and electrochemical resistance under 20% stretching in 2D directions. © Xiaohong Chen, Département de chimie moléculaire (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes)
Lark_Whalberg on September 29th, 2019 at 16:26 UTC »
Finally! My sweaty body is going to be of use.
Purplekeyboard on September 29th, 2019 at 13:43 UTC »
This thing is going to end up producing 1/2 a watt of power, which will be enough to power a wristwatch, maybe.
mvea on September 29th, 2019 at 11:34 UTC »
The title of the post is a copy and paste from the title, subtitle and third paragraph of the linked academic press release here:
Journal Reference:
Xiaohong Chen, Lu Yin, Jian Lv, Andrew J. Gross, Minh Le, Nathaniel Georg Gutierrez, Yang Li, Itthipon Jeerapan, Fabien Giroud, Anastasiia Berezovska, Rachel K. O’Reilly, Sheng Xu, Serge Cosnier, and Joseph Wang.
Stretchable and Flexible Buckypaper-Based Lactate Biofuel Cell for Wearable Electronics.
Advanced Functional Materials, 2019
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adfm.201905785
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201905785
Abstract
This work demonstrates a stretchable and flexible lactate/O2 biofuel cell (BFC) using buckypaper (BP) composed of multi‐walled carbon nanotubes as the electrode material. Free‐standing BP, functionalized with a pyrene‐polynorbornene homopolymer, is fabricated as the immobilization matrix for lactate oxidase (LOx) at the anode and bilirubin oxidase at the cathode. This biofuel cell delivers an open circuit voltage of 0.74 V and a high‐power density of 520 µW cm−2. The functionalized BP electrodes are assembled onto a stretchable screen‐printed current collector with an “island–bridge” configuration, which ensures conformal contact between the wearable BFC and the human body and endows the BFC with excellent performance stability under stretching condition. When applied to the arm of the volunteer, the BFC can generate a maximum power of 450 µW. When connected with a voltage booster, the on‐body BFC is able to power a light emitting diode under both pulse discharge and continuous discharge modes during exercise. This demonstrates the promising potential of the flexible BP‐based BFC as a self‐sustained power source for next‐generation wearable electronics.