A simple energy harvesting strategy has been developed to selectively catalyze glucose in the presence of oxygen in a glucose/O-2 fuel cell. The anode consists of an abiotic catalyst Al/Au/ZnO, in which ZnO seed layer was deposited on the surface of Al/Au substrate using hydrothermal method. The cathode is constructed from a single rod of platinum with an outer diameter of 500 JAM. The abiotic glucose fuel cell was studied in phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.4) containing 5 mM glucose at a temperature of 22 C. The cell is characterized according to its open-circuit voltage, polarization profile, and power density plot. Under these conditions, the abiotic glucose fuel cell possesses an open-circuit voltage of 840 mV and delivered a maximum power density of 16.2 mu W cm(-2) at a cell voltage of 495 mV. These characteristics are comparable to biofuel cell utilizing a much more complex system design. Such low-cost lightweight abiotic catalyzed glucose fuel cells have a great promise to be optimized, miniaturized to power bioimplantable devices. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.