Biofuel Cells for Self-Powered Electrochemical Biosensing and Logic Biosensing: A Review

This article reviews recent advances and progress in developing electrochemical (EC) biosensing and logic biosensing systems based on self-powered biofuel cells (BFCs). BFCs that exploit enzymes and microbes have attracted a considerable recent interest owing to their unique ability to provide sustainable energy from renewable fuel source under mild conditions. This review focuses on recently introduced novel concepts for using BFCs as the basic element for EC-biosensing and especially EC-logic biosensing applications. The fabrication and design of such self-powered EC-biosensing and EC-logic biosensing are described along and different new approaches for BFCs-based EC-biosensing and EC-logic biosensing involving substrate effects, inhibition effects, blocking effects and gene regulation effects. Latest advances in coupling a self-powered diagnostic operation with logic-activated drug release functionality are discussed. We conclude with the implications of the new self-powered biosensing/logic-biosensing platforms along with future prospects and challenges.