Chemically modified flexible strips as electrochemical biosensors

Area of Science:

• Electrochemistry
• Materials Science
• Biosensors

Background:

• Accurate glucose monitoring is crucial for diabetes management.
• Development of cost-effective and sensitive glucose sensors is an ongoing challenge.
• Non-enzymatic glucose detection offers an alternative to enzyme-based methods, avoiding enzyme-related stability issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a flexible, disposable, and low-cost strip sensor for non-enzymatic glucose detection.
• To investigate the efficacy of nanostructured copper deposited on a polyaniline/aminopropyltrimethoxysilane modified polyester film for glucose sensing.
• To evaluate the sensor's performance in terms of sensitivity, linear range, detection limit, and response time, and to validate its use in clinical samples.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of strip sensors using polyester (OHP) films modified with 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) and polyaniline (PANI).
• Electroless deposition of nanostructured copper onto the modified films.
• Characterization of film morphology and structure using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD).
• Electrochemical measurements including Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Chronoamperometry (CA) for glucose detection.

Main Results:

• The developed Cu/PANI/APTMS/OHP sensor exhibited excellent catalytic activity for glucose oxidation.
• Achieved high sensitivity of 2.8456 mA cm(-2) per mM with a linear concentration range from 100 μM to 6.5 mM.
• Demonstrated a low detection limit of 5 μM and a rapid response time of less than 5 seconds.
• Sensor performance was superior to sensors without polyaniline (Cu/APTMS/OHP).
• Successful application in detecting glucose in clinical blood serum samples with results correlating well with actual glucose levels.

Conclusions:

• The synergistic effect between nanostructured copper and the conducting polymer (PANI) enhances glucose detection performance.
• The flexible, disposable, and low-cost strip sensor is a promising candidate for practical glucose monitoring.
• The sensor shows high potential for reliable glucose level determination in real biological samples.