Effects of Designing and Operating Parameters on the Performance of Glucose Enzymatic Biofuel Cells

摘要

Glucose enzymatic biofuel cells (GEBC) which use glucose oxidase (GOx) enzyme as a biocatalyst to oxidize glucose fuel have become an interesting topic. In this study, the effects of several designing and operating parameters including the fuel flow rate, current collector material, cell assembly type, and opening area of flow channel on the GEBC performance, which has the bioanode electrode prepared by coating cross-linked Chitosan/Tripolyphosphate (CS/TPP) matrix on the carbon cloth (CC) surface for immobilizing GOx enzyme (denoted as GOx[TPP/CS/CC]) and the cathode electrode prepared by bare CC with employing Potassium Ferricyanide as the reductant, are experimentally investigated. The results show that the maximum power density (MPD) considerably increases as the fuel flow rate is increased from 1.7 to 3.3 ml s~(-1) and then gradually decreased as operated at the higher fuel flow rates. Besides, the performance of GEBC using the current collector made of copper is slightly higher (10.8%) than that using the current collector made of graphite. Moreover, it is observed that the GEBC assembled in a parallel manner (3.906 mW cm~(-2)) exhibits a better cell performance compared with the GEBC assembled in series (3.408 mW cm~(-2)). The open ratio of the flow field channel to the active electrode area also has an influence on the MPD of the parallel-assembly GEBC.