ABSTRACT
Biofuel cells (BFCs) belong to a special kind of fuel cells where biocatalysts are employed as the catalysts and biomass as the fuels. This chapter provides the advances in enzymatic BFCs (EBFCs) enhanced by porous nanoarchitectures over the past 5 years, from the aspects of their performance and potential applications. It presents porous structures from carbon materials including carbon nanotubes, graphene, and porous carbon, as well as noble metal and polymeric materials used as electrode materials and enzyme immobilization matrices to develop high performance EBFCs. Due to large specific surface areas, high porosity, intrinsic conductivity, and biocompatibility, porous noble metal nanostructures can yield rapid electron and mass transport pathways for bioelectrocatalysis. Incorporation with porous templates such as carbon, metal, metal oxide, polymer, and even bacteria to assist noble metal nanoparticles, are advantageously exploited for porous noble metal nanoarchitectures in the EBFC development.
