Paper-Based Electrodes to Detect Ascorbic Acid, Uric Acid, Dopamine & Biomass Derived Sugars

Abstract

Multiple factors are involved in creating an electrochemical sensing device to detect various compounds. There is always a need for environmentally friendly, disposable, flexible, low-cost electrochemical sensor devices. This type of technology in the Navajo Nation is essential because it would allow them to have real-time, reliable, and cost-effective on-site detection. This would allow the Navajo Nation to detect and analyze compounds that may cause severe health issues. We fabricatehand-made flexible paper electrodes at Navajo Technical University (NTU) to detect and determine essentialbiomolecules such as ascorbic acid, dopamine, uric acid, and glucose. The materials required to fabricate these paper-based electrodes are chromatography paper, a wax printer, electrochemically active and conductive ink, electrochemistry equipment, buffer solution, and the compound being tested. First, we would get chromatography paper and print the electrode outline, designed at NTU, using the wax printer. The next step is manually coating the electrodes with the conductive ink and adding gold, copper, silver, or nickel nano-particles, which will act as catalysts. Then we deploy these electrodes to detect Glucose, Uric Acid (UA), Ascorbic Acid (AA), or Dopamine (DA) and test multiple different concentrations. We have utilized various types of electrochemical techniques like Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), Linear Sweep Voltammetry (LSV), or Cyclic voltammetry (CV). Paper-based electrodes show noticeable results for detecting and determining these target analytes in the lab samples and real sample analysis.