Hybrid Electric Power Biodevices

Abstract

Hybrid electric power biodevices, a new type of electric‐power‐producing device, are a combination of an electrochemical capacitor and a biofuel cell. In this Minireview, we summarise existing knowledge on double‐function bioelectrodes, that is, single electrodes concurrently manifesting bio‐electrocatalytic and charge‐storage features, and describe important historical aspects and achievements in this area. We also discuss a recently proposed method for concomitant electric power generation and storage, which is exemplified by fabricated and characterised self‐charging bio‐supercapacitors, also termed charge‐storing biofuel cells. The electric power in these hybrid devices is uninterruptedly generated by direct transformation of chemical energy into electric energy, as occurs in biofuel cells. The power is simultaneously and directly stored within a single device, relying on different types of capacitance based on reversible charge‐transfer reactions (pseudocapacitance) and/or electric double‐layer capacitance, as in electrochemical capacitors. We also present some unpublished results on both dual‐feature electrodes and hybrid biodevices and briefly highlight the prospects for their application.

Tear Based Bioelectronics

“…self‐charging biosupercapacitors/charge‐storing BFCs (Fig. 20), exemplified with different glucose/oxygen biodevices using CDH and BOx as biocatalysts 6.…”

“…The double‐layer biocapacitor based on CDH and BOx (see additional details concerning fabrication and characterisation in 6) was tested in artificial human tears in both pulse and continuous operation modes; the test results in the form of a Ragone chart are presented in Fig. 21.…”

Effective bioelectrocatalysis of bilirubin oxidase on electrochemically reduced graphene oxide

“…Biofuel cells (BFCs) are very promising devices with the ability to produce [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and even to store [29][30][31] electricity using biocatalysts through a coupled oxidation of a supplied fuel and a reduction of a depolarizer, mainly oxygen [16,21,23,24,27,32,33]. Reduction of oxygen is very often secured by "multicopper oxidases" [34] such as laccases and bilirubin oxidases (BODs), which is a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to platinum catalysts [35].…”

Nanostructuring carbon supports for optimal electrode performance in biofuel cells and hybrid fuel cells

“…In addition, carbon nanotubes at the carbon electrode form a nanocomposite electrode showing supercapacitor properties. Such combination of enzymatic catalysis with charge storing matrix would improve the performance of the electrodes and provide more efficient powering abilities in a biofuel cell arrangement [36][37][38][39][40].…”