Abstract
Over the last years, polymers have gained great attention as substrate material, because of the possibility to produce low-cost sensors in a high-throughput manner or for rapid prototyping and the wide variety of polymeric materials available with different features (like transparency, flexibility, stretchability, etc.). For almost all biosensing applications, the interaction between biomolecules (for example, antibodies, proteins or enzymes) and the employed substrate surface is highly important. In order to realize an effective biomolecule immobilization on polymers, different surface activation techniques, including chemical and physical methods, exist. Among them, plasma treatment offers an easy, fast and effective activation of the surfaces by micro/nanotexturing and generating functional groups (including carboxylic acids, amines, esters, aldehydes or hydroxyl groups). Hence, here we present a systematic and comprehensive plasma activation study of various polymeric surfaces by optimizing different parameters, including power, time, substrate temperature and gas composition. Thereby, the highest immobilization efficiency along with a homogenous biomolecule distribution is achieved with a 5-min plasma treatment under a gas composition of 50% oxygen and nitrogen, at a power of 1000 W and a substrate temperature of 80 °C. These results are also confirmed by different surface characterization methods, including SEM, XPS and contact angle measurements.
Highlights
Point-of-care testing (POCT) systems have recently become essential tools in the healthcare sector to accelerate medical treatment decisions or diagnosis as they enable on-site measurements in resource-limited settings, such as in developing countries, in doctor’s practice or directly at home [1,2].the development of POCT devices takes the center stage in many different research areas, including life science, clinical diagnostics, food analysis and environmental monitoring
22 of cost on-site testing systems in high throughput, the employed materials have shifted over the last systems in high throughput, the employed have shifted the last years from silicon, glass years from silicon, glass or ceramics, usedmaterials mainly for microandover nanoelectromechanical systems, to or ceramics, used mainly for microand nanoelectromechanical systems, to polymers
As expected, increasing the power and the time of the plasma process result in higher optical intensities and a more homogeneous and effective protein immobilization
Summary
Point-of-care testing (POCT) systems have recently become essential tools in the healthcare sector to accelerate medical treatment decisions or diagnosis as they enable on-site measurements in resource-limited settings, such as in developing countries, in doctor’s practice or directly at home [1,2].the development of POCT devices takes the center stage in many different research areas, including life science, clinical diagnostics, food analysis and environmental monitoring. Point-of-care testing (POCT) systems have recently become essential tools in the healthcare sector to accelerate medical treatment decisions or diagnosis as they enable on-site measurements in resource-limited settings, such as in developing countries, in doctor’s practice or directly at home [1,2]. POCT systems have to deliver a high performance (regarding sensitivity, selectivity and turnaround times), but they should be cost-effective without the need for bulky instrumentation (for example, for sample preparation or signal readout). In order to produce low-cost on-site testing. 22 of cost on-site testing systems in high throughput, the employed materials have shifted over the last systems in high throughput, the employed have shifted the last years from silicon, glass years from silicon, glass or ceramics, usedmaterials mainly for microandover nanoelectromechanical systems, to or ceramics, used mainly for microand nanoelectromechanical systems, to polymers [4]. In contrast to these advanced materials, mainly requiring expensive and timeto these advanced materials, mainlypolymers requiringoffer expensive andand time-consuming processes, consuming fabrication processes, a facile cost-effective fabrication mass production of polymers offer a facile and cost-effective mass production of sensors
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