Enzymatic Catalysts for Fuel Cell Applications

The high-cost of materials and efficiency limitations that chemical fuel cells currently have is a topic of primaiy concern. For a fuel cell to be effective, strong acidic or alkaline solutions, high temperatures and pressures are needed. Most fuel cells use platinum as catalyst, which is expensive, limited in availability, and easily poisoned by carbon monoxide (CO), a by-product of many hydrogen production reactions in the fuel cell anode chamber. In proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, the type of fuel used dictates the appropriate type of catalyst needed. Within this context, tolerance to CO is an important issue. It has been shown that the PEM fuel cell performance drops significantly with a CO con- 

Balbuena, V. Subramanian (eds.), Theory and Experiment in Electrocatalysis, Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry 50, DOI 10.1007/978-l-4419-5594-4 6, 

Bioelectrochemical generation of power by enzymes has also been considered. The usage of enzymes as catalysts in fuel cells has been vastly experimented, and currently some enzymatic fuel cells are being used to produce electricity to power many number of electrical devices, like pumps, valves and pacemakers, or electronic devices, like radios, sensors, controllers, and processors. At present however, enzymatic fuel cells have been 

Providing power output hmitations are overcome, enzymatic fuel cells might offer potentially attractive power sources for some consumer electronic devices. Hence in this chapter, a clear understanding of the reactivity of MDH enzymes at molecular level is proposed to umavel the secret of its catalytic activity towards methanol electro-oxidation. 

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