Researchers have developed a hybrid of a fuel cell and capacitor on a biocatalytic basis. With the aid of enzymatic processes, what’s known as a biosupercapacitor efficiently generates and stores energy. The trick: the enzymes are embedded in a stable polymer gel, which can store a large amount of energy. The scientists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Swedish Malmö University describe their development in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Societal challenge
Generating energy and saving it with as little loss as possible is one of the major challenges for today’s society. Energy production and storage usually take place in different systems – which is inefficient. This is different in the new biosupercapacitor, which combines both processes.
“Such a technology could, for instance, be interesting for miniaturised devices, which should even supply themselves with energy wirelessly. This is particularly important for implantable miniaturised sensors,” says Prof Dr Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Bochum Institute for Analytical Chemistry. He was involved in the development with his colleagues Dr Felipe Conzuelo, Dr Piyanut Pinyou and Sabine Alsaoub.
Enzymes at both electrodes
With the aid of an enzyme, the biosupercapacitor burns glucose as a fuel at one electrode. At the other electrode, an enzyme converts oxygen into water. Both enzymes must be embedded in an electron-conducting gel in order to establish the electrical contact to the electrodes. For the first time, the team used the same gel, also called a redox polymer, for both electrodes.
When charging up and storing the energy, this redox polymer at one electrode gives off electrons and is thus positively charged. At the other electrode, it takes in the electrons and is thus negatively charged. “During the discharging process, the charges equal out and a current flows,” explains Schuhmann.
High capacity
The system set up in this manner showed itself to be stable in the researchers’ tests and can serve as a permanent source of energy. It has a low weight and a high capacity, so it can hold a large charge. “We see this work as a starting point for future strategies in the development of new, highly functional and also affordable electrical sources of energy on bioelectrochemical basis,” summarise the authors.
Click Here to Read Full Article
read more
CALMAC
SANTA CLARA, Calif. & SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.–(
While cost (down) and capacity (up) have been the focus of much of the hype around Tesla’s newly launched Powerwall 2, the US company’s addition of an inverter to its second-generation battery units could also have major market implications.
Sungrow, the world‘’s leading PV inverter manufacturer, has successfully held a series of energy storage training roadshows in Australia aimed at promoting its next generation hybrid inverter SH5K+ which has gained wide attention across the continent.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E, San Francisco, California, U.S.) has successfully completed a technology demonstration project to explore the performance of battery storage systems participating in California’s electricity markets.
A study by 
The largest solar and energy storage system in Connecticut was recently opened, by the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (CMEEC) and Norwich Public Utilities (NPU), in partnership with SolarCity and Brightfields Development. NPU will now provide its customers with solar power as part of its current electric service and without an additional charge. When added to NPU’s existing hydropower capabilities, the NPU energy portfolio is now nearly 20% renewable.
Tesla has acquired German engineering firm Grohmann Engineering to form a new advanced automation segment of its business, producing manufacturing equipment for its factories in the US.
Recent Comments