A Novel Thin‐Film Copper Array Based on an Organic/Inorganic Sensor Hybrid: Microfabrication, Potentiometric Characterization, and Flow‐Injection Analysis Application

Abstract

A first step towards the microfabrication of a thin-film array based on an organic/inorganic sensor hybrid has been realized. The inorganic microsensor part incorporates a sensor membrane based on a chalcogenide glass material (CuAg-As-Se) prepared by pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) combined with an PVC organic membrane-based organic microsensor part that includes an o-xylyene bis(N,N-diisobutyl-dithiocarbamate) ionophore. Both types of materials have been electrochemically evaluated as sensing materials for copper(II) ions. The integrated hybrid sensor array based on these sensing materials provides a linear Nernstian response covering the range 1 Â 10À1 of copper(II) ion concentration with a fast, reliable and reproducible response. The merit offered by the new type of thin-film hybrid array includes the high selectivity feature of the organic membrane-based thin-film microsensor part in addition to the high stability of the inorganic thin-film microsensor part. Moreover, the thin-film sensor hybrid has been successfully applied in flow-injection analysis (FIA) for the determination of copper(II) ions using a miniaturized home-made flow-through cell. Realization of the organic/inorganic thin-film sensor hybrid array facilitates the development of a promising sophisticated electronic tongue for recognition and classification of various liquid media.

Recent trends in potentiometric sensor arrays—A review

“…LAPS devices with ion-sensitive membranes are also used as potentiometric sensor arrays for the determination of mainly heavy metal ions [109][110][111][112][113]. Such a relatively narrow field of application of these devices is related to methods of deposition of sensitive layers on the sensor surface, of which two are most widely used-pulsed laser deposition method [114] of chalcogenide films selective to heavy metal ions and surface immobilisation of living cells on a waterporous filter membrane or in normal cultivation dishes [115].…”

New solid-state organic membrane based leadselective micro-electrode

“…The stock solution of this mixture was prepared by mixing thoroughly 33 mg of powdered PVC, 57 mg of 2-nitrophenyl octyl ether plasticizer, 3 mg of potassium tetrakis (pchlorophenyl) borate anion excluder and 7 mg of tert-Butylcalix [4]arene-tetrakis(N,Ndimethylthioacetamide) lead (II) ionophore in a small beaker. The mixture was then completely dissolved in 5 mL THF [16][17][18][19]. The sensor chips with the thin-film gold substrates were fabricated at Research Centre Jülich as described elsewhere [16,[22][23][24].…”

“…Here, thin films of Ag precipitates have been deposited on the substrate surfaces from 10 -3 mol L -1 AgNO 3 solution for 1 h using a home-made small electro-deposition cell. In combination with this step and based on the previously reported technique [17][18][19], the cocktail-coating mixture was nebulized on the treated surface of the gold thin-film substrate using a small commercial nebulizer. The nebulized solution was delivered to the substrate in fast pulses with 2 min intervals between the pulses.…”

“…On the other hand, the development of organic membrane based micro-sensors has been recently introduced to overcome the low selectivity of chalcogenide glass and inorganic based thinfilm micro-sensors [16][17][18][19].…”

“…To solve this problem, we had recently developed a new approach (Arida Approach) for the organic-based sensors micro-fabrications [17][18][19]. In this technique, the organic membrane-based sensitive layer has been nebulized in combination with a substrate surface treatment.…”