Département de chimie moléculaire

Enzymic biofuel cells offer the exciting prospect of clean energy prodn. for implantable devices, but such devices are still exotic and require improvements in electrode design and performance. Here a global strategy to prep. robust and versatile buckypaper bioelectrodes for advancing biofuel cell applications is presented. The fabrication method is based on a combination of original bifunctional polynorbornene copolymers with carbon nanotubes. Use of copolymers contg. both pyrene and activated ester groups for crosslinking and tethering, resp., increases the mech. and electrochem. performance compared to buckypaper prepd. without polymer or with the pyrene homopolymer. The amt. of polymer used is an important parameter and was optimized to improve mech. performance. High surface concns. of reactive ester functionalities were obtained using long-chain polymers and exhibited high selectivity for attachment of aminoanthraquinone and the enzyme laccase. High performance biocathodes for direct oxygen redn. were constructed by immobilization of laccase on unmodified and anthraquinone-modified buckypapers. Anthraquinone-modified electrodes gave increased current densities due to improved elec. wiring of laccase via the hydrophobic pocket near the laccase T1 site. Biocathode stability over one month was excellent (53{%} c.d. after 24 days) and thus a new class of practical carbon-based enzymic biofuels is envisioned. [on SciFinder(R)]