Low-cost Potentiostat Research Articles

Electrochemical Biosensors for the Detection of Viruses: Must-Have Products or Just Science for Publication?

Electrochemical Biosensors for the Detection of Viruses: Must-Have Products or Just Science for Publication?

HunStat - a simple and low-cost potentiostat for analytical and educational purposes.

We have developed a truly low-cost (15 USD), simple do-it-yourself (DIY) potentiostat with compact dimensions. The output potential range of this device is between ±1.65 V. The developed instrument takes advantage of a Seeeduino XIAO microcontroller equipped with 10 bit digital-to-analog (D/A) and 12 bit analog-to-digital (A/D) converters and supports various voltammetry techniques, including cyclic voltammetry (CV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), and chronoamperometry (CA). Interested users are provided with circuit diagrams, bill of materials, and design files. Additionally, software components are also provided free of charge, including an Arduino sketch and control software. The software enables easy manipulation of electrochemical parameters and visualization of results. The presented design introduces a simple and low-cost DIY potentiostat recommended for both analytical and educational purposes.

Voltammetric techniques for low-cost on-site routine analysis of thymol in the medicinal plant Ocimum gratissimum

The composition of essential oils varies according to culture conditions and climate, which induces a need for simple and inexpensive characterization methods close to the place of extraction. This appears particularly important for developing countries. Herein, we develop an analytical strategy to determine the thymol content in Ocimum Gratissimum, a medicinal plant from Benin. The protocol is based on electrochemical techniques (cyclic and square wave voltammetry) implemented with a low cost potentiostat. Thymol is a phenol derivative and was directly oxidized at the electrode surface. We had to resort to submillimolar concentrations (25–300 μM) in order to minimize production of phenol oligomers that passivate the electrode. We worked first on two essential oils and realized that in one of them the thymol concentration was below our detection method. These results were confirmed by gas chromatography – mass spectrometry. Furthermore, we optimized the detection protocol to analyze an infusion made directly from the leaves of the plant. Finally, we studied whether the cost of the electrochemical cell may also be minimized by using pencil lead as working and counter electrodes.

Design and analysis of a low-cost potentiostat for application with microbial electrochemical sensors

Potentiostats are often limited to relatively costly laboratory-based analysis, which limits their access and application by researchers and practitioners, including for mobile in-field systems. This paper presents an alternative low-cost potentiostat design, sufficiently accurate for application with a microbial electrochemical sensor. The design of the device is described, evaluated using simulation and applied to a microbial electrochemical sensor to measure acetate. Incorporated into the design are a micro-controller, local data storage, and a standard industrial communication protocol to provide flexibility and data management. The device was able to produce a potential at ±2.5 V relative to an Ag-AgCl reference electrode and to measure current at ±2 mA, which was comparable to the performance of laboratory potentiostats on the market. Simulation analysis using fundamental electronic principles, such as Ohm's Law, confirmed that operation of the system was valid and as expected. Further testing using a pseudo-cell showed the device was accurate across a relevant potential range. Results from the initial calibration of the device show less than 1.6 % standard error of the mean. The device was further applied to a microbial electrochemical cell to measure acetate, which confirmed the device was functional for this application and recorded values were consistent with expectations based on the relevant literature.

Design of smartphone-controlled low-cost potentiostat for cyclic voltammetry analysis based on ESP32 microcontroller

The electrochemical-based analysis provides simplicity, robustness, and relatively less maintenance. Specifically, a low-cost potentiostat, a basic equipment to conduct electrochemistry experiments and analysis, is necessary to aid small-medium educational units to develop a multifunctional mini-laboratory, particularly for education. In addition, the development of portable and small instruments could be essential to obtain a wider technology adopters implication. In this paper, eSTAT, a low-cost and smartphone controlled potentiostat system was developed based on ESP32 microcontroller. The performance of eSTAT was evaluated from the Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) measurements, from which the accuracy and the error tolerance of the system were determined. The results showed that the eSTAT could measure the Voltammogram signal with the accuracy of 98.30% for the anodic peak current and 87.84% for the cathodic peak current relative to the commercial Zimmer&Peacock ANA POT EIS potentiostat. In addition, the wireless control of eSTAT could be done wirelessly via Bluetooth using an external application made on Android OS.

TBISTAT: An open-source, wireless portable, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy capable potentiostat for the point-of-care detection of S100B in plasma samples.

Point-of-Care (POC) testing for biomarker detection demands techniques that are easy to use, readily available, low-cost, and with rapid response times. This paper describes the development of a fully open-source, modular, wireless, battery-powered, smartphone-controlled, low-cost potentiostat capable of conducting electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for the electrochemical detection of the S100B protein captured in an ANTI-S100B functionalized thin-film gold interdigitated electrode platform to support traumatic brain injury diagnosis and treatment. EIS results from the developed potentiostat were validated with a commercial benchtop potentiostat by comparing impedance magnitude and phase values along the EIS frequency range. In addition, an experimental design was performed for detecting S100B in spiked human plasma samples with S100B concentrations of clinical utility, and a calibration curve was found for quantifying S100B detection. No statistically significant differences were found between EIS results from the developed potentiostat and the commercial potentiostat. Statistically significant differences in the changes in charge transfer resistance signal between each tested S100B concentration (p < 0.05) were found, with a limit of detection of 35.73 pg/mL. The modularity of the proposed potentiostat allows easier component changes according to the application demands in power, frequency excitation ranges, wireless communication protocol, signal amplification and transduction, precision, and sampling frequency of ADC, among others, when compared to state-of-the-art open-source EIS potentiostats. In addition, the use of minimal, easy acquirable open-source hardware and software, high-level filtering, accurate ADC, Fast Fourier Transform with low spectral leakage, wireless communication, and the simple user interface provides a framework for facilitating EIS analysis and developing new affordable instrumentation for POC biosensors integrated systems.

Label free, electric field mediated ultrasensitive electrochemical point-of-care device for CEA detection

Developing point-of-care (PoC) diagnostic platforms for carcinoembryonic antigen detection is essential. However, thefew implementations of transferring the signal amplification strategies in electrochemical sensing on paper-based platforms are not satisfactory in terms of detection limit (LOD). In the quest for pushing down LOD, majority of the research has been targeted towards development of improved nanostructured substrates for entrapping more analyte molecules and augmenting the electron transfer rate to the working electrode. But, such approaches have reached saturation. This paper focuses on enhancing the mass transport of the analyte towards the sensor surface through the application of an electric field, in graphene-ZnO nanorods heterostructure. These hybrid nanostructures have been deposited on flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrates with screen printed electrodes for PoC application. The ZnO nanorods have been functionalized with aptamers and the working sensor has been integrated with smartphone interfaced indigenously developed low cost potentiostat. The performance of the system, requiring only 50 µl analyte has been evaluated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and validated against commercially available ELISA kit. Limit of detection of 1 fg/ml in human serum with 6.5% coefficient of variation has been demonstrated, which is more than three orders of magnitude lower than the existing attempts on PoC device.

Low-cost smartphone-controlled potentiostat based on Arduino for teaching electrochemistry fundamentals and applications

Accessibility to potentiostats is crucial for research development in electrochemistry, but their cost is the principal drawback for their massive use. With the aim to provide an affordable alternative for resource-constrained communities, we present a low-cost, portable electrochemical workstation that integrates an open-source potentiostat based on Arduino and a smartphone application. This graphical user interface allows easy control of electrochemical parameters and real-time visualization of the results. This potentiostat can perform the most used electrochemical techniques of cyclic and linear voltammetry and chronoamperometry, with an operating range of ±225 μA and ±1.50 V, and results that are comparable with those obtained with commercial potentiostats. Three applications reported here demonstrate the capacity and the good performance of this low-cost potentiostat as a teaching tool: identification of redox pairs, electrochemical characterization of pencil graphite electrodes, and detection of heavy metals using an electrodeposited film of bismuth on the pencil graphite electrode. Furthermore, detailed schemes of the device and its software are entirely available, expecting to provide an open-source potentiostat easy to replicate to further support education in electrochemical fundamentals and instrumentation.

Electrochemically Deposited Calcium Phosphate Coatings Using a Potentiostat of In-house Design and Implementation

Abstract The effect of growth conditions and post treatments on the properties of calcium phosphate films electrodeposited by a potentiostat of the authors’ design and construction is presented. The electrolyte used was formed with 0.025 M (NH4)H2PO4 and 0.042 M Ca(NO3)2.4H2O, and its pH was kept at 5. A voltametric analysis was performed to determine the necessary potential values to obtain the films. Additionally, the temperature of the electrolyte was varied to determine its influence on the properties of the deposited films. The films were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The films deposited at -1.4 V and -1.7 V present the brushite phase. The thermal post-treatment favored the formation of octagonal calcium phosphate in amorphous phase, while the basic treatment provided the OH- groups necessary for the formation of hydroxyapatite. The low cost potentiostat implemented presents excellent characteristics for obtaining films with similar characteristics to those obtained with a conventional potentiostat.

A Sensitive Voltammetric Biosensor forEscherichia ColiDetection Using an Electroactive Substrate for $\beta$ -D-Glucuronidase

In this paper, we developed a sensitive and simple electrochemical method for the rapid detection of Escherichia coli in water samples. The general principle of the assay utilizes the enzyme $\beta $ -D-glucuronidase. This enzyme was induced by adding methyl- $\beta $ -D-glucuronide sodium salt and its activity promoted the cleavage of 8-hydroxyquinoline glucuronide to the electroactive compound 8-hydroxyquinoline. This cleavage product was further oxidized on the working electrode of a potentiostat using cyclic voltammetry. The obtained current output signal in a specific voltage range (400 to 600 mV) indicated enzyme activity and subsequently was an evidence for E. coli cells in the sample. For our experiment, we designed a low-cost potentiostat and show an evaluation of this instrument. First, the $\beta $ -D-glucuronidase assay was tested with various concentrations of enzyme solutions before living E. coli cells were investigated. Our presented method allowed a clear and a sensitive identification of 1 colony-forming unit of E. coli without any interference from other investigated bacterial strains. Comprising only few working steps (filtration, incubation, and voltammetric analysis), the method allowed incorporation into an automated prototype that delivered results similar to those obtained from samples treated in laboratory.

Addition to An Easily Fabricated Low-Cost Potentiostat Coupled with User-Friendly Software for Introducing Students to Electrochemical Reactions and Electroanalytical Techniques

Addition to An Easily Fabricated Low-Cost Potentiostat Coupled with User-Friendly Software for Introducing Students to Electrochemical Reactions and Electroanalytical Techniques

An Easily Fabricated Low-Cost Potentiostat Coupled with User-Friendly Software for Introducing Students to Electrochemical Reactions and Electroanalytical Techniques

This paper presents a teaching kit that combines the fabrication of a low-cost microcontroller-based potentiostat and a LabVIEW-generated graphical user interface. The potentiostat enables undergraduate-level students to learn electroanalytical techniques and characterize energy conversion devices such as solar cells. The purpose of this teaching module is to make the introduction of electrochemistry accessible to undergraduate laboratories, especially those with limited financial resources and without expertise in electronics or programming. The electronic circuit components for the potentiostat are readily available and easy to assemble. The graphical user interface replaces any programming-based interface, displays data in real time, and interacts with user commands. The software package is a stand-alone executable file that is compatible with any PC and is provided in the Supporting Information. Cyclic voltammetry, linear sweep voltammetry, and chronoamperometry functions are demonstrated with represe...

Embedded 32-bit Differential Pulse Voltammetry (DPV) Technique for 3-electrode Cell Sensing

This paper addresses the development of differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) embedded algorithm using an ARM cortex processor with new developed potentiostat circuit design for in-situ 3-electrode cell sensing. This project is mainly to design a low cost potentiostat for the researchers in laboratories. It is required to develop an embedded algorithm for analytical technique to be used with the designed potentiostat. DPV is one of the most familiar pulse technique method used with 3-electrode cell sensing in chemical studies. Experiment was conducted on 10mM solution of Ferricyanide using the designed potentiostat and the developed DPV algorithm. As a result, the device can generate an excitation signal of DPV from 0.4V to 1.2V and produced a peaked voltammogram with relatively small error compared to the commercial potentiostat; which is only 6.25% difference in peak potential reading. The design of potentiostat device and its DPV algorithm is verified.

Nanostructured zinc oxide photoelectrodes by green routes M-SILAR and electrodeposition for dye sensitized solar cell

Surfactant-free, ultrasound assisted modified successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (M-SILAR) method and home-made microcontroller based low-cost potentiostat system are employed to prepare zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructure based thin films. The comparison between physicochemical as well as photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties of the nanostructures prepared via two different template free, simplistic and cost-effective green routes have been discussed in detail. X-ray diffraction and Raman analysis confirm the formation of phase pure ZnO with the hexagonal crystal structure. Surface morphology significantly affects the physicochemical as well as PEC properties of ZnO thin films. Nanorods (NRs) and nanosheets (NSs) based ZnO thin films sensitized with N3 dye have been directly used as photoelectrodes in the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 0.59% is achieved with Jsc of 4.04 mA/cm2 and Voc of 0.44 V for the DSSC in which the M-SILAR deposited 1-D ZnO NRs based thin film is used as the photoanode. While relatively less PCE of 0.29% with Jsc of 2.53 mA/cm2 and Voc of 0.36 V is obtained for DSSC prepared using electrodeposited 2-D ZnO NSs. In the NSs like 2-D surface morphology, the presence of multiple grain boundaries are acted as traps for the diffusing electrons, which reduces the electron mobility through it.

Fabrication of a Configurable Multi-Potentiostat for LOC Applications

This paper describes the development of a portable, cost effective reconfigurable multi-analyte detection electronics meter module for Lab-on-a-chip applications. A low costpotentiostat(LMP91000) was used as the analog front end (AFE) in this work. The advanced core microcontroller from Microchip (PIC16LF1783) was used for controlling the different operation of the meter. The current obtained by amperometrictechniques was calibrated and displayed on a graphical LCD and alsodisplayed on a smart phone using Bluetooth technology.

A Low Cost Potentiostat Device For Monitoring Aqueous Solution

This study developed a new design of a low cost potentiostat circuit device. This device is an alternative electrochemical instrument applied for monitoring heavy metal ion in environmental water. It was developed to alleviate the cost burden of equipment procurement and due to the requirement for in-situ application since the existing commercialize devices are bulky and expensive. the main component of the device consist of electronics configuration of operational amplifier. the device was first modelled and simulated to acquire the design parameters and performance. the potential control algorithm was developed on open-source microcontroller platform. A dummy cell was used to validate the capabilities of the device.

Smartphone-based cyclic voltammetry system with graphene modified screen printed electrodes for glucose detection

Smartphone-based electrochemical devices have such advantages as the low price, miniaturization, and obtaining the real-time data. As a popular electrochemical method, cyclic voltammetry (CV) has shown its great practicability for quantitative detection and electrodes modification. In this study, a smartphone-based CV system with a simple method of electrode modification was constructed to perform electrochemical detections. The system was composed of these main portions: modified electrodes, portable electrochemical detector and smartphone. Among them, the detector was comprised of an energy transformation module applying the stimuli signals, and a low-cost potentiostat module for CV measurements with a Bluetooth module for transmitting data and commands. With an Application (App), the smartphone was used as the controller and displayer of the system. Through controlling of different scan rates, the smartphone-based system could perform CV detections for redox couples with test errors less than 3.8% compared to that of commercial electrochemical workstation. Also, the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and sensitive substance could be modified by the system on the screen printed electrodes for detections. As a demonstration, 3-amino phenylboronic acid (APBA) was used as the sensitive substance to fabricate a glucose sensor. Finally, the experimental data of the system were shown the linear, sensitive, and specific responses to glucose at different doses, even in blood serum as low as about 0.026mM with 3δ/slope calculation. Thus, the system could show great potentials of detection and modification of electrodes in various fields, such as public health, water monitoring, and food quality.

Construcción de un potenciostato de bajo costo para estudios de inhibición de corrosión de acero: determinación del potencial de corrosión y mediciones cronoamperométricas

Knowledge integration is the central duty of chemistry education and is in this context where the investigation surrounding steel corrosion inhibition bring us the opportunity to integrate knowledge from electrochemical kinetics, Organic chemistry, Instrumental analytical chemistry and electronics via the construction of a low cost potentiostat and the use of this in studies of the anticorrosive properties of atropine sulphate with carbon steel in solution. Due that this experience is going to allow the student the determination of the corrosion potential and chronoamperometric behavior of carbon steel SAE 1010 in 0.9% NaCl solution in presence and absence of atropine sulphate in a standard electrochemistry cell of three electrodes.

A New, Low-cost Potentiostat for Environmental Measurements with an Easy-to-use PC Interface

A potentiostat is an electronic device for investigating the mechanisms of redox reactions and other electrochemical processes. These highly sensitive instruments allow studying the electrochemical properties of a certain analyte in solution. Nowadays, there are many high-end systems on the market that are usually supplied with a dedicated software package. However, there are only few instruments available in the low price segment. Therefore, our goal was to develop “EcoStat” a low-cost, digitally controlled potentiostat, which has several improvements compared to other inexpensive instruments; e.g. lower noise anda more stable output signaldue to a digital PI controller. Furthermore, the data acquisition, visualization and filtering are managed by a comfortable, easy-to-use PC interface called “POTCON”. Additionally, EcoStat was evaluated with three other commercial potentiostats and showed a good performance compared to high-end instruments.

Development of an Automated Biosensor for Rapid Detection and Quantification of E. coli in Water

Escherichia coli are an indicator organism for fecal contamination and can represent a serious health hazard for humans. Common water quality tests are time consuming routine analysis. Our aim was the development of an automated biosensor for a fast identification and quantification of E. coli contaminations in ground-, surface- and drinking water. We applied an electrochemical assay to detect E. coli using their β-galactosidase activity. First, the enzyme production was stimulated in the cells and further, specifically released through a T2 bacteriophage mediated cell lysis. The enzyme concentration was monitored by potentiometric measurements. By using this methodological approach we were able to specifically detect at least 2 colony-forming units (CFU) of E. coli within 8hours. The incorporation of this method into an automatic biosensor device would ensure the quality of our water. Furthermore, a continuous monitoring could be achieved and online data transfer ensures fast counteractions in water treatment plants. For future applications we developed a low-cost potentiostat with an easy-to-use PC software for environmental measurements and evaluated it with 3 different devices.