A new and sweet source of energy

A handful of herbicide helps break down sugar in a very efficient way.

Researchers at Brigham Young University have developed a fuel cell – basically a battery with a gas tank – that produces electricity from glucose and other sugars known as carbohydrates. The human body's favorite source of energy - sugar - could, one day, power all of our appliances, cars and homes.

"Carbohydrates are extremely energy-dense substances," says chemistry professor Gerald Watt. "What we needed was a catalyst that could "displace" the electrons from the glucose and transfer them to the electrode."

It turns out that the surprising solution lies in a herbicide, as published by the scientists in the scientific journal Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

The effectiveness of this common and inexpensive herbicide is a serious advantage for carbohydrate-based fuel cells. In contrast, hydrogen-based fuel cells, such as those developed by the energy company General Motors, require the use of an expensive platinum catalyst. The researchers' next step is to increase the cell's efficiency through design improvements. The study reported experiments that gave a conversion rate of twenty-nine percent, i.e. - transfer of seven of the twenty-four electrons in each sugar molecule.

"We have shown that much more can be produced from glucose than other scientists have done before us," said Dean Wheeler, one of the paper's lead authors and a professor of chemical engineering at the university.
"Now, we are trying to achieve a higher power density so that the technology is commercial."

Since the paper was published, the researchers' prototype system has performed twice as efficiently, and now the researchers are trying to improve even that.

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