Reaction intensification in triphase enzyme electrode: In silico design of interfacial microenvironment
Jing Li1,2,Siyu Zou3, Xinjian Feng(封心建)1*,Jie Xiao(肖杰)1,2*
1State Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Interfacial Materials Science, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Jiangsu Province, P. R. China
2School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Soochow University, Jiangsu Province, P. R. China
3School of Chemical Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, P. R. China
AIChE J. 2026, 72, e70210
Abstract: This study introduces an enzyme electrode structure featuring a special three-dimensional (3D) triphase interface which is constructed by penetrating concentric cylindrical pillars with porous walls into the enzyme layer. This approach substantially increases the effective surface area for both oxygen supply and consumption, thus enhancing the enzymatic and electrochemical cascade reaction efficiency (i.e., the key performance indicator of the enzyme electrode). Numerical simulations were employed to explore the quantitative relationship between the interfacial structure and the cascade reaction efficiency. The reaction kinetics of the new 3D triphase enzyme electrode designed here is more than 60-fold higher compared with that of the enzyme electrode with two-dimensional triphase interfaces, and more than 1432-fold higher compared with that of the conventional enzyme electrode with liquid-solid diphase interfaces. The findings in this work are expected to provide a theoretical basis for the development of next generation high-efficiency enzyme electrodes.
Article information: https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.70210