Biological fuel cell performance

Extensive review literature exists in the area of biological fuel cells. Notably, Palmore and Whitesides summarized biological fuel cell concepts and performance up to 1992." More recently, Katz and Willner discussed recent progress in novel electrode chemistries for both microbial and enzymatic fuel cells,and Heller reviewed advances in miniature cells.This article does not duplicate these valuable contributions. Instead, we focus on the strengths and weak-... 

Rinaldi A, Mecheri B, Garavaglia V, Licoccia S, Di Nardo P, Traversa E. Engineering materials and biology to boost performance of microbial fuel cells a critical review. Energy Environ Sci 2008 1 417-429. 

The past decades have seen a incredible boost of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in both scientific research and commercial sectors since lijima s discovery of CNTs [117]. CNTs have extraordinary and unique mechanical, optical and electrical properties and major research efforts were focused on areas including high performance electroiucs, scanning probe microscopy, fuel cells, composites, mechanical, chemical, biological and physical sensors, etc. [118]. However, the formation of insoluble large bundles, caused by the strong van der Waals interactions between individual hydrophobic nanotubes, limited the applications of CNTs. In order to harness the full potential of CNTs, their separation and dispersion are therefore an intense subject of scientific research. 

When we compare the performance of different MFC systems, the power output usually has to be normalised to some characteristic of the fuel cell. For MFCs aiming to produce electricity, it is common to normalise the power output by the projected anode surface area, because the anode is where the biological reaction occurs. The power density (Panode/ W m ) therefore is... 

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