The first example of a copper(II) oxide screen printed electrode is reported which is characterised with microscopy and explored towards the electrochemical sensing of glucose, maltose, sucrose and fructose. It is shown that the non-enzymatic electrochemical sensing of glucose with cyclic voltammetry and amperometry is possible with low micro-molar up to milli-molar glucose readily detectable which compares competitively with nano-catalyst modified electrodes. The sensing of glucose shows a modest selectivity over maltose and sucrose while fructose is not detectable. An additional benefit of this approach is that metal oxides with known oxidation states can be incorporated into the screen printed electrodes allowing one to identify exactly the origin of the observed electro-catalytic response which is difficult when utilising metal oxide modified electrodes formed via electro-deposition techniques which result in a mixture of metal oxides/oxidation states. These next generation screen printed electrochemical sensing platforms provide a simplification over previous copper oxide systems offering a novel fabrication route for the mass production of electro-catalytic sensors for analytical and forensic applications.

No abstract

The facile and rapid production of microelectrode ensembles is shown to be possible using off-the-shelf cosmetic products and is exemplified with the electrochemical sensing of a toxic metal offering a novel fabrication methodology.

Nickel modified graphite screen printed electrodes are explored towards the sensing of alcohols in alkaline solutions. Electrolytically formed nickel microrods with average lengths and diameters of 12 mM and 2 mM respectively are shown to be readily formed on the surfaces of graphite screen printed electrodes. This is the first example of electrolytically formed nickel nanorods which exhibit electrocatalysis towards the sensing of ethanol over the range 2.6-23 mM and glycol over the range 230-1840 mM with limits of detection of 1.4 mM and 186 mM respectively.

We demonstrate a facile methodology for the production of metallic electrocatalytic microdomain ensembles for a range of analytical sensing challenges. A commercially available off-the-shelf cosmetic product can change the voltammetric characteristics of a metallic macro-electrode created electrolytically into that of a random ensemble of metallic microelectrode domains. Proof-of-concept is shown for three examples: a palladium ensemble for hydrazine sensing, a gold ensemble for arsenic(III) detection via anodic stripping voltammetry and platinum ensembles for the direct oxidation of arsenic(III). Last we demonstrate that the fabrication of metallic microdomains can be simplified by sputter coating screen printed electrochemical sensing platforms which are beneficially constructed using this cosmetic methodology. Given the facile fabrication and low cost of the underlying electrode substrate and the cosmetic modifier, the widespread implementation of this novel fabrication methodology is expected.