Date/Time
Date(s) - 24/08/2023
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Location
ABB A404

Please join us next week for Eduardo Gonzalez-Martinez’s PhD seminar, which will be offered hybrid.

Title: Cost-Effective Benchtop Fabrication of Sensitive Electrochemical Biosensing Platforms

Date: Thursday August 24, 2023

Time: 1:30-2:30pm

Room: ABB A404

Zoom: Please email chemgrad@mcmaster.ca for details

Host: Jose Moran-Mirabal

Abstract: The accurate and rapid detection of clinically relevant analytes at the point-of-care (POC) is a crucial element for the increase in our quality of life. There are multiple detection techniques for sensing a target analyte in biological samples. However, electrochemical sensors excel because of their versatility, accuracy and sensitivity. Among the many challenges in the fabrication of electrochemistry-based POC sensors, the miniaturization of the working electrodes is one of the most difficult to overcome. Decreasing the size of the sensors will result in less electroactive surface area (ESA) and, therefore, lower sensitivity. Thus, the design of miniaturized electrodes with high ESA is desired in this research field.   The methodology developed in our laboratory to accomplish this goal is based on the fabrication of microstructured gold electrodes (MSEs) by depositing, via sputtering, a gold thin-film onto a pre-stressed polystyrene substrate masked with adhesive vinyl stencils and thermally shrinking the substrate at high temperatures (135-160 °C). In my thesis work, I developed cost-effective sensitive electrochemical platforms using only bench-top approaches.  First, the ESA and, thus, the sensitivity of the MSEs were enhanced by using a simple and rapid nano-roughening approach. The ESA of MSEs was increased 4x by applying high voltage pulsing in sulfuric acid. The resulting electrodes possessed high anti-fouling capabilities and excellent response toward the enzyme-free detection of glucose with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.62 mM in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and ascorbic acid. Furthermore, the fabrication cost of the MSEs electrodes was decreased by 5x by replacing the sputtering deposition step with a cost-effective solution-based electroless deposition technique. In this case, the PS substrates were coated with a polydopamine adhesion layer and noble metal films (copper, silver and gold) were subsequently plated. Not only the cost of the gold electrode was substantially reduced but, due to the intrinsic roughness of the surface, the MSEs electrodes obtained via electroless deposition showed a higher ESA than those made via sputtering. Furthermore, the developed electroless method was extended for the fabrication of paper-based sensing devices. The sensing versatility of these surfaces was demonstrated by electrochemically detecting mercury with a 0.27 ppb  LOD and by sensing thiophenol via surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The MSEs electrodes fabricated via electroless deposition were subjected to the nano-roughening technique to generate affordable and high ESA electrodes. These platforms were used to design enzyme-based biosensors to accurately detect glucose and urea in complex samples. Glucose was detected in four different types of wine, with matrix interference measured to be below 10%, and in human serum, with a measured concentration that was not statistically different from that obtained from commercially available biosensors. Urea was detected in human urine and plasma with matrix interferences measured to be below 8% in both cases. We envision that the fabrication techniques developed in this thesis will rapidly grow in the scientific community for the prompt and accurate design of POC electrochemical devices.