A portable potentiostat integrated with a Pt/ZnO/LIG electrode for non-enzymatic glucose detection

Continuous glucose monitoring is critical for effective diabetes management; however, conventional benchtop potentiostats are bulky, costly, and unsuitable for decentralized point-of-care (PoC) applications. To address these limitations, this work presents a miniaturized, low-cost electrochemical sensing platform integrating a non-enzymatic glucose sensor with a portable potentiostat. The sensing electrode is based on laser-induced graphene modified with zinc oxide and platinum nanostructures via electrodeposition to enable sensitive glucose detection under physiological conditions. A custom-designed portable potentiostat was developed to control electrode potentials and perform electrochemical measurements, and its performance was experimentally validated against a commercial Metrohm system. Glucose detection was evaluated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). The sensor exhibited a sensitivity of 49.0 µA mM^-1 cm^-2 over a dynamic range of 1-16 mM using CV, and 7.375 µA mM^-1 cm^-2 over 0.5-26 mM using CA at +0.40 V, with a detection limit of 251.02 µM. The portable potentiostat demonstrated comparable performance to the commercial system, with a deviation of 9.23%. These results demonstrate the feasibility of integrating non-enzymatic sensing with portable electronics to achieve reliable and cost-effective glucose detection. The developed platform provides a scalable pathway toward accessible, decentralized PoC diagnostics and wearable biosensing applications.