Biological fuel cells (biofuel cells) are fuel cells based on biocatalysts to transform energy of chemical compounds into electrical energy via redox reactions. In enzymatic fuel cells (EFC) both anodic and cathodic biocatalysts are redox enzymes. During the presentation general principles of EFC function will be shown, possible limiting steps of their performances will be discussed, and already existing devices will be presented.

Since 1969 substantial efforts were devoted to miniaturized implantable enzyme-based BFC for powering microscale medical biodevices. In spite of obvious advantages of glucose/oxygen EFC based on direct electron transfer (DET) reactions as power source for implantable devices (simple construction, ability for significant miniaturization, and less-toxicity due to the absence of redox mediators), there is only a limited number of reports describing membrane-, mediator-, cofactor-less DET-based EFC operating in physiological liquids of different compositions and pH values, e.g., blood, plasma, serum, saliva, and sweat. Already achieved parameters of glucose/oxygen DET-based BFC will be presented and possibility for their improvement will be highlighted. Moreover, possible applications of BFC in short- and long-term perspectives will be discussed.

Acknowledgements The work was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council and FP7 EU project NMP4-SL-2009-229255.

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