Electrohydrodynamic-printed ultrathin Ti3C2Tx-MXene field-effect transistor for probing aflatoxin B1

Abstract

Microarray patterns fabricated using printing technology have attracted significant research interest for the production of portable, implantable, feasible, wearable, and flexible electronics. Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing is an emerging, simple, and rapid electrode-patterning technology for academic and industrial applications. The development of devices composed of MXenes, 2D hexagonal crystals, which demonstrate great potential for electronic and energy storage applications, is one of the main focuses of current research efforts. Herein, we report the EHD-printed Ti3C2Tx MXene-based field-effect transistors (FET) as promising biosensors for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) detection. The printing cycles and ink concentration were considered as the optimization objectives, and the optimized FET was validated using the output and transfer characteristics of the device. The optimized EHD-printed FET exhibited good adhesion to the substrate, high electrical conductivity, and an ideal range of resistance. The biosensor was created by functionalizing the EHD-printed MXene layers with a specific antibody against AFB1. This FET biosensor could detect the AFB1 at a concentration of 0.01 ppb with a linearity range of 0.7–20 ppb in a water medium (limit of detection = 5.689 ppb). In addition, the FET biosensor successfully detected AFB1 in food samples, such as peanut butter and meju. Thus, we have successfully demonstrated a promising EHD-printed FET biosensor for AFB1. The device is a highly selective and sensitive immunoanalytical method for AFB1 that requires no complex sample preparation steps compared with high-performance liquid chromatography.