Recent advances in the role of biocatalyst in biofuel cells and its application: An overview

ABSTRACT

Biofuel cells have recently gained popularity as a green and renewable energy source. Biofuel cells are unique devices of energy and are capable of converting the stored chemical energy from waste materials such as pollutants, organics and wastewater into reliable, renewable, pollution-free energy sources through the action of biocatalysts such as various microorganisms and enzymes. It is a promising technological device to treat waste to compensate for global warming and the energy crisis through the green energy production process. Due to their unique properties, various potential biocatalysts are attracting researchers to apply them to various microbial biofuel cells for improving electricity and power. Recent research in biofuel cells is focusing on the exploitation of different biocatalysts and how they are enhancing power generation for various applications in the field of environmental technology, and biomedical fields such as implantable devices, testing kits, and biosensors. This review focusing the importance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and enzymatic fuel cells (ECFs) and role of different types of biocatalysts and their mechanisms for improving biofuel cell efficiency gathered from recent reports. Finally, its multifaceted applications with special emphasis on environmental technology and biomedical field will be described, along with future perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Biofuel cells
• biocatalyst
• microbial fuel cells
• enzymes
• application

Acknowledgements

SB Ummalyma would like to acknowledge the Director, IBSD for providing support and motivation (IBSD Manuscript No: IBSD/2020/01/057)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Sabeela Beevi Ummalyma: Conceptualization, designing the work, and manuscript writing and correction Thallada Bhaskar: Review and editing

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article

Notes on contributors

Sabeela Beevi Ummalyma

Sabeela Beevi Ummalyma is currently working as a scientist at the Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Imphal, Manipur, India. Her research interests are in biofuels from lignocellulosic and microalgal biomass, the circular bioeconomy from bioresources, bioremediation, and sustainable engineering.

Thallada Bhaskar

Dr.Thallada Bhaskar is currently serving as Senior Principal Scientist and Head of the Material Resource Efficiency Division (MRED), CSIR-IIP, Dehradun. Also serves as a professor at the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, India. His area of research is thermocatalytic processes for biomass conversion to biofuels, photocatalysis, and reactors for catalytic transformation and separation processes, functional materials from algal and lignocellulosic biomass, catalysts for hydrotreatment (bio and fossil crude), lignin valorization, novel catalytic materials preparation and characterization, and waste plastic conversion.