KickStat: A Coin-Sized Potentiostat for High-Resolution Electrochemical Analysis

Area of Science:

• Electrochemistry
• Biosensors
• Miniaturized Instrumentation

Background:

• Growing demand for wearable and point-of-care devices necessitates miniaturized electrochemical sensors.
• Development of portable biosensors requires highly sensitive amperometric measurement capabilities.
• Existing instrumentation often lacks the necessary miniaturization for truly portable applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop KickStat, a miniaturized potentiostat for high-resolution electrochemical analysis.
• To integrate a potentiostat chip with a microcontroller on a compact circuit board.
• To enable sensitive amperometric measurements in a small form factor.

Main Methods:

• Designed a custom 21.6 mm by 20.3 mm circuit board.
• Integrated the Texas Instruments LMP91000 potentiostat chip and ARM Cortex-M0+ SAMD21 microcontroller.
• Incorporated onboard signal processing for enhanced resolution and detection limits.

Main Results:

• Achieved 1 mV voltage increment resolution and an instrumental limit of detection of 4.5 nA.
• Demonstrated KickStat's performance with cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry on an anti-cocaine aptamer.
• Verified KickStat's response within 0.6% of a high-end benchtop potentiostat.

Conclusions:

• KickStat provides a miniaturized, high-resolution solution for electrochemical biosensing.
• The device enables sensitive measurements in a coin-sized form factor, suitable for portable applications.
• The design and firmware are publicly available to support further biosensor development.