Professor Matsuhiko Nishizawa at Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University and Senior Researcher Kenji Hata at Nanotube Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have developed films in which enzymes and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are uniformly conjugated. The films are flexible enzyme electrode seals which can be used by being attached to or wrapped around something, and exhibit several times higher catalytic activity than ever before. Biofuel cells generated electricity from aqueous solution of fructose in the highest power density ever. These biofuel cells were made of two seals including the enzyme digesting fructose and the enzyme digesting oxygen.

The research was conducted as a part of Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), and some achievements were published online in Journal of The American Chemical Society, a U.S. chemistry journal, on March 10, 2011. The paper’s title is “Self-Regulating Enzyme-Nanotube Ensemble Films and Their Application as Flexible Electrodes for Biofuel Cells.”

More information (Japanese)

[Contact]

Professor Matsuhiko Nishizawa

Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University

Address: 6-6-01 Aoba Aramaki Aoba-ku Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8579, Japan

TEL/FAX: +81-22-795-7003

E-mail: nishizawa*biomems.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Replace * with @)

Assistant Professor Takeo Miyake

Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University

Address: 6-6-01 Aoba Aramaki Aoba-ku Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8579,Japan

TEL/FAX: +81-22-795-3586

Senior researcher Kenji Hata

Nanotube Research Center,

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Address: AIST Tsukuba Central 5, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8561 Japan

TEL/FAX: +81-29-861-4654

E-mail: kenji-hata*aist.go.jp (Replace * with @)