Fluorescence Spectroscopy applied in conformational changes studies of Glucose Oxidase (GOx) enzyme for enzymatic fuel cells improvement

• Grant number: 13/01827-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2013
• End date: June 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Patricia Targon Campana
• Grantee: Leandro Petrini Junior
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Enzymatic fuel cells are fuel cells that depend on enzymatic catalysis for their proper functionality, and have, as the main advantage, the ability to operate at temperatures compared to room ones (like 20°C to 40°C). Besides that, they don't need specific and expensive materials like platinum. On the other hand, one of the issues in using Enzymatic Fuel Cells relies on the short enzyme lifetime, which is related to the low enzyme activity when is incorporated to other materials for anode and/or cathode assemble. This manipulation during the assembly can lead to modifications at native protein structure. In this sense, the project presented here aims to study the conformational modifications on GOx enzyme (used for EFC construction), at active site region, in different physical chemistry conditions as pH and ionic strength changes, and with Nafion® polymeric membrane addition (used for anode and cathode assembly) by means of fluorescence spectroscopy. (AU)