A wearable and flexible lactic-acid/O2 biofuel cell with an enhanced air-breathing biocathode.

ABSTRACT

The performance of biocathode in an enzymatic biofuel cell (EBFC) in the real application is somehow overlooked. Herein, a wearable and flexible lactic-acid/O2 EBFC enhanced with an air-breathing biocathode is designed to solve the limitation of biocathode that arises from the low solubility and slow mass transfer of the dissolved oxygen. To improve the oxygen supply efficiency for the air-breathing biocathode, a superhydrophobic base electrode creating an efficient air-solid-liquid triphase interface is developed. The designed EBFC with an 'island-bridge' configuration is integrated by assembling the current collectors of air-breathing biocathode and bioanode on a commercial laminating film (LF) screen-printed with a noninterfering circuit. It is found that the biocathode/bioanode area ratio should exceed 91 so that the designed EBFC (1A//9C) can achieve the optimal performance. This EBFC delivers an open circuit voltage of ca. 0.75 V and outputs a maximum power density of ca. 1.78 mW cm-2. In addition, a scaled-up EBFC (total bioanode area 1.5 cm2) successfully powers a self-developed low-power device of heartrate in the pulse operation mode when applied on a volunteer's arm.