VATIS UPDATE Article

Researchers Takehiko Kitamori and Yuriy Pihosh and their colleagues at The University of Tokyo, Japan, have designed a photocatalytic microgenerator of hydrogen fuel, combined with a micro fuel cell, all set up on a microfluidic chip. This microfluidic power generator is based on sunlight and can provide continuously power supply to other miniaturized devices at room temperature and at atmospheric pressure.

The scientists describe their microfluidics power device as a modular system set on a glass platform with the two modules, the photocatalytic micro fuel generator and the micro fuel cell, being connected by a set of micro- and nanochannels. Both microfluidic modules contain a set of “extended nanochannels” for proton exchange – the authors argue that these ENCs provide an excellent proton conductance and allow much faster proton travel than the conventional Nafion proton exchange membranes.

The photoanode, namely, the photocatalyst for water splitting, is also innovative: it consists of especially designed metal-oxide nanorods that photocatalyze the production of hydrogen with “record efficiency,” as the authors have demonstrated. Both gases, oxygen and hydrogen produced by water splitting, are then separately transported through the microchannels to the micro fuel cell, where oxygen, electrons, and protons electrochemically combine to water, providing the energy.