A self-powered acetaldehyde sensor based on biofuel cell.

Acetaldehyde is recognized as a type of organic environmental pollutant all over the world, which makes the sensitive, rapid, simple and low-cost detection of acetaldehyde urgent and significant. Inspired by the biological principle of feedback modulation, we have developed a novel and effective self-powered device for aqueous acetaldehyde detection. In this self-powered device, an ethanol/air enzymatic biofuel cell (BFC) served as the core component, which showed the maximum power output density of 28.5 μW cm(-2) at 0.34 V and the open circuit potential (V(oc)) of 0.64 V. The product of ethanol oxidation, acetaldehyde, would counteract the electrocatalysis at the bioanode and further decrease the power output of the BFC. Based on such principles, the fabricated acetaldehyde sensor exhibited excellent selectivity with wide linear range (5-200 μM) and low detection limit (1 μM), which conforms to the criteria provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO). In addition, the sensor fabrication is simple, fast, inexpensive, and user-friendly, and the detection process is convenient, efficient, and time-saving, requiring no complicated equipment. These make such self-powered acetaldehyde sensors feasible and practical for detecting aqueous acetaldehyde, particularly in the field of quality control and monitoring aimed at water resource protection.