Issue 10, 2017

On-chip enzymatic microbiofuel cell-powered integrated circuits

Abstract

A variety of diagnostic and therapeutic medical technologies rely on long term implantation of an electronic device to monitor or regulate a patient's condition. One proposed approach to powering these devices is to use a biofuel cell to convert the chemical energy from blood nutrients into electrical current to supply the electronics. We present here an enzymatic microbiofuel cell whose electrodes are directly integrated into a digital electronic circuit. Glucose oxidizing and oxygen reducing enzymes are immobilized on microelectrodes of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) using redox hydrogels to produce an enzymatic biofuel cell, capable of harvesting electrical power from just a single droplet of 5 mM glucose solution. Optimisation of the fuel cell voltage and power to match the requirements of the electronics allow self-powered operation of the on-board digital circuitry. This study represents a step towards implantable self-powered electronic devices that gather their energy from physiological fluids.

Graphical abstract: On-chip enzymatic microbiofuel cell-powered integrated circuits

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Feb 2017
Accepted
18 Apr 2017
First published
26 Apr 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Lab Chip, 2017,17, 1761-1768

On-chip enzymatic microbiofuel cell-powered integrated circuits

A. G. Mark, E. Suraniti, J. Roche, H. Richter, A. Kuhn, N. Mano and P. Fischer, Lab Chip, 2017, 17, 1761 DOI: 10.1039/C7LC00178A

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