Nitrogen-doped graphene approach to enhance the performance of a membraneless enzymatic biofuel cell

doi:10.1007/s11708-018-0529-3

Front. Energy

2018, Vol. 12

Issue (2) : 233-238 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-018-0529-3

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Nitrogen-doped graphene approach to enhance the performance of a membraneless enzymatic biofuel cell

Alireza AHMADIAN YAZDI, Jie XU(

)

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA

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Abstract

Heteroatom-doping of pristine graphene is an effective route for tailoring new characteristics in terms of catalytic performance which opens up potentials for new applications in energy conversion and storage devices. Nitrogen-doped graphene (N-graphene), for instance, has shown excellent performance in many electrochemical systems involving oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and more recently glucose oxidation. Owing to the excellent $H 2 O 2$ sensitivity of N-graphene, the development of highly sensitive and fast-response enzymatic biosensors is made possible. However, a question that needs to be addressed is whether or not improving the anodic response to glucose detection leads to a higher overall performance of enzymatic biofuel cell (eBFC). Thus, here we first synthesized N-graphene via a catalyst-free single-step thermal process, and made use of it as the biocatalyst support in a membraneless eBFC to identify its role in altering the performance characteristics. Our findings demonstrate that the electron accepting nitrogen sites in the graphene structure enhances the electron transfer efficiency between the mediator (redox polymer), redox active site of the enzymes, and electrode surface. Moreover, the best performance in terms of power output and current density of eBFCs was observed when the bioanode was modified with highly doped N-graphene.

Keywords enzymatic fuel cell nitrogen-doped graphene reduced graphene oxide catalyst-free synthesis

Corresponding Author(s): Jie XU

Online First Date: 18 January 2018 Issue Date: 04 June 2018

Cite this article:

Alireza AHMADIAN YAZDI,Jie XU. Nitrogen-doped graphene approach to enhance the performance of a membraneless enzymatic biofuel cell[J]. Front. Energy, 2018, 12(2): 233-238.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/10.1007/s11708-018-0529-3
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/Y2018/V12/I2/233

Fig.1 Raman spectra of GO, rGO, and N-graphene with different mass ratio of GO to melamine during the synthesis

Fig.2 Representative cyclic voltammograms of the as-prepared GO_X/Fc-C₆-LPEIbioanodes

Fig.3 Representative cyclic voltammograms of the as-prepared BO_X/An-MWCNT/TBAB-modified Nafion biocathodein the absence and presence of

O 2

, at a scan rate of 10 mV/s

Fig.4 Power curves (solid lines) and linear polarization graphs (dashed lines) of the eBFCs equipped with GO_X/Fc-C₆-LPEIbioanodesmodified with N-graphene (1:5) and (1:50), rGO, and bare carbon paper (blank)

Anode modification	OCV /V	Maximum power density /( $μW · cm − 2$ )			Current density at maximum power/( $μA · cm − 2$ )	Power increase vs. blank/%
N-graphene (1:50)	0.55	85.91			355.00	41
N-graphene (1:5)	0.55	74.09			339.90	35
rGO	0.56	59.45			288.60	14
Blank	0.56	55.97	252.10	-

Tab.1 Comparison of eBFCs performance with different bioanode modifications

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