Three Different Rapidly Prototyped Polymeric Substrates With Interdigitated Electrodes for Escherichia coli Sensing: A Comparative Study.

Abstract

This work delves upon the development of different types of miniaturized and 3D printed devices having interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) for the detection of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. The IDEs were fabricated using different approaches including laser-induced graphene (LIG) on polyamide, direct laser writing on glass, and polymeric 3D printing technique, and their suitability for bacteria detection has been compared. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique was employed to detect the E. coli bacteria in the prepared miniaturized devices, and the sensory response was compared. EIS was performed in the frequency range between 1 Hz to 1 MHz to record the bacterial growth and activities as a function of change in electrical impedance, and detection performance of the different miniaturized devices with IDEs were compared. It was observed that the LIG-based IDE sensor provided better sensitivity compared to that of the other two approaches. The obtained results indicate that the magnitude of impedance changes by around 2.5 [Formula: see text] per doubling of E.coli cells. With fast and flexible fabrication process capabilities, such microdevices may be used as suitable IDE sensors for microscale pathogenic detection for biomedical and clinical analysis.