Active mass transfer for printable electrochemical sensors with ultrasonic stimuli

Active mass transfer capable of efficiently dispersing tested substances is essential in many chemical analysis scenarios. However, it is still an unmet challenge to enable such attractive function to be matched with screen-printed electrochemical sensors to increase the sensitivity. Here we present a facile active mass transfer method with ultrasonic stimuli and discuss the possibility to help printable electrochemical sensors increasing the sensitivity in an active manner. An active electrochemical sensor composed of printable electrodes and piezo-electric elements is developed to perform both mass transfer and chemical detection functions. Specific vibration mode for the electrochemical sensor platform is utilized and the acoustofluidics induced by droplet resonance is determined. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of proposed mass transfer function. At last, hydrogen peroxide analysis confirms that the presented active mass transfer method can effectively improve the sensitivity by 45% and the limit of detection by 53% for the same sensor. In addition, some adverse effects of ultrasonic stimulation on electrochemical detection have also been studied. The ultra-sonic stimuli methodology in this work provides controllable mass transfer in ultra-small space, thereby highly promising for developing new active screen-printed sensors for sensitive detection in various applications in future.

Automated summary

This study presents a facile active mass transfer method using ultrasonic stimuli to enhance the sensitivity of screen-printed electrochemical sensors. An active electrochemical sensor composed of printable electrodes and piezo-electric elements is developed to perform both mass transfer and chemical detection functions. Numerical and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed mass transfer function. The ultrasonic stimuli methodology in this work provides a promising solution for developing new active screen-printed sensors for sensitive detection in various applications.