A movable type bioelectronics printing technology for modular fabrication of biosensors

Abstract

Biosensors have been widely used in various fields such as food industry, environmental testing and medical testing for their high sensitivity. However, current fabrication methods of biosensors, such as screen printing, micro fabrication and 3D printing suffer from complex procedures, requirement of cleanroom facility and limited fabrication materials, which significantly restrict the development and utilization of biosensors. Here, we propose a movable type bioelectronics printing method for the fabrication of biosensors by directly transferring bioelectronic materials onto various substrates using pre-fabricated molds. This simple, low-cost, yet robust method facilitates on-demand printing of master molds of partial or complete circuits on both rigid or flexible substrates. With this method, bioactive materials such as enzymes can be directly transferred onto substrates together with other electronic components, without complex modification after electrode fabrication using conventional methods. For demonstration, a dual-channel flexible electrochemical biosensor was fabricated by the movable type bioelectronics printing method for continuous monitoring of glucose and lactate. The movable type bioelectronics printing technology holds advantages of repeatability, flexibility and low cost for fabrication of biosensors on rigid and flexible substrates, as well as direct transfer printing of bioactive materials, which greatly promotes small-scale production of biosensors.

Inkjet Printing: A Viable Technology for Biosensor Fabrication

“…It requires skilled operators and is costly in small-scale production. Another limitation of screen printing is its confinement to flat surfaces, which restricts its use for biosensor fabrication [213]. In comparison, the drop-on-demand nature of inkjet printing technology enables the printing of materials only when required, reducing the wastage of both the electronic and biological inks, while at the same time offering rapid processing, high resolution, and repeatability [214].…”

Continuous monitoring of multiple biomarkers with an ultrasensitive 3D-structured wearable biosensor

“…The device consists of a sample collection module, a biosensing module, a signal processing module, and so on. The biosensing module is fabricated with a cost-effective movable-type bioelectronics printing method 16 and finally integrated with enzyme-modified 3D-structured nickel foams on the working electrodes. All the modules, including sensors, micro control unit (MCU), data processing modules, wireless communication modules, power management modules, etc., are compatibly integrated as a wearable device.…”