Role of electrode configuration and morphology in printed prothrombin time sensors

Abstract

Patients on long-term anticoagulation therapy require frequent testing of prothrombin time/international normalized ratio (PT/INR) to ensure therapeutic efficacy. Point-of-care (POC) PT tests for at-home monitoring eliminate the burden of visiting the clinic, but realizing a cost-effective and robust at-home POC test for PT has remained elusive. Recent demonstrations of printed PT sensors show promise for addressing the cost concerns; however, the printed sensors have lacked quality control to ensure reliability between tests. In this work, on-chip redundancy is introduced with fully printed impedimetric PT sensors by incorporating simultaneous testing with a single fingerstick volume of blood (8 µL). The influence of electrode dimensions and composition were studied, revealing an optimal electrode spacing of 200 µm and an unexpected dependence on the morphology of the electrodes. Three distinct silver morphologies were studied: aerosol jet printed silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), aerosol jet printed silver nanowires (AgNWs), and evaporated silver (Ag). In general, AgNPs exhibited the best PT sensor performance, due to relatively low conductance and high porosity. Overall, the printed impedimetric PT sensor functionalization was improved by incorporating simultaneous testing and, when combined with a handheld control device, shows promise for leading to a system that overcomes the challenges of commercial PT/INR coagulometers.