Power the Future with Biofuel Cells

Organization

• BeFC – innovator of bioenzymatic fuel cells

Challenges

• Creating a robust R&D lab to meet their current measurement needs

• Kick-starting their industrial development of biofuel cells

Solutions

• MXR054A mixed-signal oscilloscope

• CX3324A device current waveform analyzer

• N6705C DC power analyzer

• B2901BL precision source / measure unit

• E36312A triple-output power supply

• M9615A PXIe five-channel precision source / measure unit

Results

• Test throughput increased by four times and enabled independent and multi-DUT test triggering

• Won global technology awards and industry recognition for their innovative biofuel cell solution

Electronic integration continues to increase in all things, including disposable medical devices and wearables. Many devices are battery operated, using button or coin cell power sources. These power sources can be difficult to collect and recycle, and are often toxic, causing soil contamination and water pollution.

This is a growing concern as IoT goes mainstream, not only in healthcare but also in industrial applications such as asset tracking and Industry 4.0.

Challenges

BeFC’s two key business challenges focused on increasing their R&D laboratory capabilities and kickstarting the industrial development of their biofuel cells.

A key objective was to equip their electronics team with industry best-in-class benchtop instruments to accelerate the prototyping phase of their flexible printed circuit boards. The tools must be able to perform low-power measurements with a high time-base resolution.

BeFC also needed a cost-effective multichannel instrument capable of performing electrochemical measurements to further engineer their paper biofuel cells.

Solutions

Keysight worked with BeFC to implement multiple hardware and software solutions to help them fulfill their current business goals. Integrating the multiple solutions gave BeFC valuable insights to better understand the biofuel cells’ behavior and characteristics.

The Keysight M9614A PXIe 5-channel precision source / measure unit combined with the Keysight M9005A PXIe chassis gave BeFC 25 independent measurement channels to use for their electrochemical testing.

These platforms met the test needs of BeFC by enabling higher channel density and fast throughput in a compact and affordable package. Figure 2 shows BeFC performing independent testing of multiple fuel cells in parallel.