F.M. Cuevas-Muñiz

Highly Methanol Tolerant Cathode Based on PtAg for Use in Microfluidic Fuel Cell

In the present work, a methanol tolerant cathode catalyst was developed through the electrodeposition of bimetallic nanoparticles PtAg on a glassy carbon electrode using potentiostatic and voltammetric techniques. The resulting particles were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical techniques. According to the SEM study the synthetized nanoparticles have semi-spherical shape and their average diameter is 100 nm. This material shows catalytic activity to the oxygen reduction reaction with high tolerance to methanol.

Laccase/AuAg Hybrid Glucose Microfludic Fuel Cell

In this work a hybrid microfluidic fuel cell was fabricated and evaluated with a AuAg/C bimetallic material for the anode and an enzymatic cathode. The cathodic catalyst was prepared adsorbing laccase and ABTS on Vulcan carbon (Lac-ABTS/C). This material was characterized by FTIR-ATR, the results shows the presence of absorption bands corresponding to the amide bounds. The electrochemical evaluation for the materials consisted in cyclic voltammetry (CV). The glucose electrooxidation reaction in AuAg/C occurs around − 0.3 V vs. NHE. Both electrocatalytic materials were placed in a microfluidic fuel cell. The fuel cell was fed with PBS pH 5 oxygen saturated solution in the cathodic compartment and 5 mM glucose + 0.3 M KOH in the anodic side. Several polarization curves were performed and the maximum power density obtained was 0.3 mWcm−2 .