Ex vivo energy harvesting by a by-pass depletion designed abiotic glucose fuel cell operated with real human blood serum

Autonomous implantable devices without any external power input are desirable in many situations. Glucose fuel cells (GFCs) that rely on the use of glucose and oxygen available in human body fluids may power implanted medical devices. This work offers a new route to the development of abiotically catalyzed GFCs (AGFCs) with high performance. Herein, we report a new, easy, rapid, and inexpensive design (by-pass depletion design) to manufacture an AGFC based on synthesized Pt/rGO (anodic electrode) and Fe-Co/KB (cathodic electrode). Moreover, the feasibility and the performance of the AGFC in the presence of glucose as fuel has been investigated using three sources: idealized-buffer, simulated tissue fluid, and human blood serum (HBS); and oxygen is taken directly by an oxygen-selective cathode which is a great advantage to decrease the formation of mixed potential founded in these fuel cells. Electrochemical evaluations in HBS show that the fabricated AGFC can deliver a power density of ∼12.5 μWcm −2 (at 230 mV and 54 μAcm −2 ). Also, after 8 h of continuous operation in HBS under 10 μAcm −2 discharge load, the AGFC still delivers ∼50% of its initial power density, achieving a half-life well comparable to the state of the art devices. • Energy harvesting by an abiotic glucose fuel cell in human blood serum. • Introducing novel BY-pass depletion fuel cell design. • Fe-Co/KB shows an exceptional selectivity toward oxygen reduction in blood serum. • Pt/rGO has an appropriate activity for glucose oxidation in physiological media. • Half-life of ∼8 h is achieved (at 0.01 mAcm −2 constant load) in human blood serum.