Lab-on-a-Chip Sensor with Evaporated Bismuth Film Electrode for Anodic Stripping Voltammetry of Zinc

In this work, we report on the development of a lab-on-a-chip electrochemical sensor that uses an evaporated bismuth electrode to detect zinc using square wave anodic stripping voltammetry. The microscale electrochemical cell consists of a bismuth working electrode, an integrated silver/silver chloride reference electrode, and a gold auxiliary electrode. The sensor demonstrated linear response in 0.1 M acetate buffer at pH 6 with zinc concentrations ranging from 1 microM to 30 microM and a calculated detection limit of 60 nM. The sensor was also able to successfully detect zinc in a bovine serum extract and the results were verified with independent AAS measurements. These results demonstrate the advantageous qualities of this lab-on-a-chip electrochemical sensor for clinical applications, which include a small sample volume (microL scale), reduced cost, short response time and high accuracy at low concentrations of analyte.