A Simultaneous Calibration and Detection Strategy for Electrochemical Sensing with High Accuracy in Complex Water

The electrochemical sensors loaded with nanomaterials have exhibited a great sensitivity. Nonetheless, the field detection for complex waterbodies can be affected by cross-sensitivity, environmental conditions such as temperature and pH value, as well as the relatively low reproducibility and stability of nanomaterials. In this paper, a simultaneous calibration and detection (SCD) strategy is proposed to introduce a simultaneous and precise calibration during field electrochemical detection, which is composed of a linear regression algorithm and a compact electrochemical sensor containing a series of identical sensing cells. This design can significantly mitigate cross-sensitivity in complex water and the inconsistency of sensing materials. Applied in the NO₂^- detection for practical waterbodies, the SCD strategy has exhibited a relative error of no more than 9.6% for the measurement compared to the results obtained by the standard Griess method and higher accuracy than the normal electrochemical method. The SCD strategy is independent of sensing materials, indicating that it can be widely applied to various detections by just switching the corresponding sensing material.