Sustainable and high-power wearable glucose biofuel cell using long-term and high-speed flow in sportswear fabrics

Abstract

Wearable electronics have been extensively studied owing to their capability of undertaking continuous multi-task for daily needs. Meanwhile, lightweight, flexible, and wearable power sources that enable high-power and sustainable energy conversion from ambient resources (e.g. bodily fluids) have attracted attention. We propose a wearable and flexible textile-based biofuel cell using moisture management fabric (MMF) widely used in sportswear as a transport layer for sustainable and high-power energy harvesting. The reduction of PB-modified cathode is driven by the oxidation of glucose catalyzed by GOD-modified anode, and this enables a single-compartment structure where MMF acts as biofuel transport media. MMF made of polyester can naturally induce a continuous, high-speed flow which facilitates molecule transport for efficient chemical reactions without an additional pump. The resulting highly efficient power generation in MMF is explored and verified by comparing it with those of cotton and paper. Additionally, multi-stack biofuel cell in both parallel and series was successfully realized, and the open circuit voltage and maximum power reached 1.08 V and 80.2 μW, respectively. Integrated into a bandage and sportswear, a six-stack biofuel cell was able to generate sufficient electrical power from human sweat and turn on a sports watch directly. Owing to low-cost and scalable fabrication process, the proposed biofuel cell has great potential to be systematically integrated into clothes, and generate sufficient and sustainable electrical power for wearable electronics using biofuel (e.g. glucose, lactase) from various bodily fluids, like sweat and urine.