Thin-film antimony-antimony-oxide enzyme electrode for penicillin determination

A potentiometric penicillinase electrode is reported in which the base pH transducer is a thin-film antimony-antimony-oxide electrode deposited by vacuum evaporation. Several enzyme immobilization procedures have been examined and a crosslinked protein film found to be the most appropriate to this type of sensor. The use of an adjacent antimony-antimony-oxide track as a pseudoreference electrode was successfully demonstrated. The overall response was shown to be independent of the stirring rate above 100 rpm, but the kinetics of the response were found to depend markedly on the stirring rate. The intrinsic linear response range was 3 x 10(-4)M to 7 x 10(-3)M penicillin G. Linearizing transforms that extend the useful range were examined.