VATIS UPDATE Article

Researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and the Swedish Malmö University, Sweden, have developed a hybrid of a fuel cell and capacitor on a biocatalytic basis. With the aid of enzymatic processes, what’s known as a biosupercapacitor efficiently generates and stores energy. The trick: the enzymes are embedded in a stable polymer gel, which can store a large amount of energy. Generating energy and saving it with as little loss as possible is one of the major challenges for today’s society.

Energy production and storage usually take place in different systems – which is inefficient. This is different in the new biosupercapacitor, which combines both processes. “Such a technology could, for instance, be interesting for miniaturised devices, which should even supply themselves with energy wirelessly. This is particularly important for implantable miniaturised sensors,” said Dr. Wolfgang Schuhmann, from the Bochum Institute for Analytical Chemistry.

With the aid of an enzyme, the biosupercapacitor burns glucose as a fuel at one electrode. At the other electrode, an enzyme converts oxygen into water. Both enzymes must be embedded in an electron-conducting gel in order to establish the electrical contact to the electrodes. For the first time, the team used the same gel, also called a redox polymer, for both electrodes. When charging up and storing the energy, this redox polymer at one electrode gives off electrons and is thus positively charged.