Carbon Nanotube/Platinum (Pt) Sheet as an Improved Cathode for Microbial Fuel Cells

We report a characterization and evaluation of a single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) sheet electrode with infused platinum nanoparticles (nPts) as a cathode in a microbial fuel cell The design is Intended to increase electrode efficiency by increasing the surface/volume ratio and the available surface area of a platinum catalyst The electrode fabrication procedure is an extension of the conventional bucky-paper-like fabrication technique to a two-component system and incorporates nPts throughout the thickness of the sample The electrodes were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and cyclic voltammetry (CV) Our characterizations confirmed the architecture of the electrodes, and the current density from our microbial fuel cell (MFC) increased significantly, approximately an order of magnitude, when an e beam-evaporated platinum cathode was replaced with this SWNT/nPt sheet electrode The enhancement of catalytic activity can be associated with the increase of the catalyst surface area in the active cathode layer Finally, our data suggest that nanoparticles co deposited into layers of nanotubes can more efficiently catalyze the cathodic reaction than electrode architectures of conventional design