Facile fabrication of screen-printed carbon electrodes for electrochemical sensors

Abstract

Carbon pastes were applied in fabricating screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs) for versatile electrochemical analyses. The electrochemical behaviour of the homemade system, consists of a working electrode, a counter electrode and a reference electrode, was investigated by the cyclic voltammetry (CV) of ferricyanide at a low concentration. The homemade SPCEs gave standard CV characteristics with sensitive electrochemical behaviours. Due to the surface roughness, the cathodic and anodic current peaks (𝐼𝑝𝑐 and 𝐼𝑝𝑎) of the homemade SPCEs were significantly higher than those of commercial DropSens 110 SPCEs at a 90 % confidence level (P value 0.1). However, the reproducibility of homemade SPCEs (n=3) by manual pasting was lower than commercial DropSens 110. The novelty in making electrodes on a polyester substrate by using carbon pastes substantially reduces the production cost. The materials and process used for these homemade SPCEs show potential for a variety of electrochemical sensors.