Powering future generations of implanted medical devices by harvesting ener­gy from the human body became a challenge of the last decades. Glucose-based biofuel cells appear to be the most promising approach since they produce electrical energy from glucose and oxygen. These two substrates are present in physiological fluids. However, such biofuel cells are limited by the difficult electrical wiring of enzymes and their poor adhesion to the electrodes. Different strategies were pro­posed to solve these problems such as wiring enzymes with redox active species using mechanical confinement, Os-complex containing redox polymers[1] and (or)nanomaterials[2]. Carbon nanotubes were widely used due to their specific proper­ties in terms of increased surface area and high electric conductivity. Moreover, carbon nanotubes are known for their high chemical and electrochemical stability facilitating the electron transfer between the active site of enzymes and the electrode surface. Carbon nanotubes were, thus deposited on different kind of materials to improve the matrix conductivity and the electron transfer properties.

In this context and with the aim to design a new generation of biofuel cells, we report an original 3 D nanostructure based on carbon nanotubes directly grown on a carbon cloth allowing an efficient immobilization of biological recognition elements. We combined the excellent properties of the carbon nanotubes with those of the carbon cloth to offer highly porous three-dimensional nanostructured frameworks. Results using a variety of different enzymes were immobilized on this support ma­terial and investigated with respect to their properties as biofuel cell anodes and cathodes. Moreover, results of complete biofuel cells based on these electrodes will be presented.

[1] L.Stoica, N.Dimcheva, Y.Ackermann, K. Karnicka, D.A.Guschin, P.J.Kulesza, J.Rogalski, D.Haltrich, R.Ludwig, L.Gorton, W.Schuhmann, Fuel Cells9(2009) 53

[2] A.Zebda, C.Gondran, A.Le Goff, M.Holzinger, P.Cinquin, S.Cosnier, Nature Comm.2(2011) 370

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