title: Mesoporous silica as a membrane for ultra-thin implantable direct glucose fuel cells.
abstract: The design, fabrication and characterization of an inorganic catalyst based direct glucose fuel cell using mesoporous silica coating as a functional membrane is reported. The desired use of mesoporous silica based direct glucose fuel cell is for a blood vessel implantable device. Blood vessel implantable direct glucose fuel cells have access to higher continuous glucose concentrations. However, reduction in the implant thickness is required for application in the venous system as part of a stent. We report development of an implantable device with a platinum thin-film (thickness: 25 nm) deposited on silicon substrate (500 μm) to serve as the anode, and graphene pressed on a stainless steel mesh (175 μm) to serve as the cathode. Control experiments involved the use of a surfactant-coated polypropylene membrane (50 μm) with activated carbon (198 μm) electrodes. We demonstrate that a mesoporous silica thin film (270 nm) is capable of replacing the conventional polymer based membranes with an improvement in the power generated over conventional direct glucose fuel cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Tushar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Meryl
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stoller
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: Rodney S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Ruoff
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: Xiaojing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry; D008904:Miniaturization; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010984:Platinum / Q000737:chemistry; D016062:Porosity; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D013193:Stainless Steel / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D013193:Stainless Steel; D010984:Platinum; D012822:Silicon Dioxide; D006108:Graphite; D005947:Glucose