Professor Xavier Crispin and his team used electrodes made from the conducting polymer PEDOT:PSS and benzendiols, aromatic compounds that can be extracted from lignin.
“PEDOT:PSS is a perfect catalyst for the reaction with a benzenediol such as catechol,” Crispin tells Phys.org. Electricity is generated without carbon dioxide being formed.
“When a fuel such as ethanol is used in a fuel cell, people usually claim that it has zero impact on the climate, since the carbon dioxide is a component of a circulation. This means that ethanol is considered to be a green fuel. We can now manufacture electricity without any emission of carbon dioxide at all, which makes our fuel supergreen. The technology also both cheap and scalable,” Crispin adds.
The results have been published in the scientific journal Advanced Sustainable Systems.