Conductivity screen-printed carbon electrodes

A wide variety of methods exist for the immobilisation of enzymes on a sensor surface. Screen-printed carbon electrodes are often the favourite base for these sensors due to their inexpensiveness and ease of mass production. Methods used for the construction of AChE-containing electrodes include simple adsorption from solution [22], entrapment within a photo-crosslinkable polymer [20,23], adsorption from solution onto microporous carbon and incorporation into a hydroxyethyl cellulose membrane [24], binding to a carbon electrode via Concanavalin A affinity [25,26] and entrapment within conducting electrodeposited polymers [27]. 

The fascinating chemistry of carbon materials, its allotropic forms, its tunable surface chemistry and conductivity, and the control of surface area and textural properties, provide the screen-printed carbon electrodes enormous possibilities for a rich tailoring of an ample manufacturing approaches of electrochemical sensors. Even though graphite is the most... 

Kurt Kalcher completed his studies at the Karl-Franzens University (KFU) with a dissertation in inorganic chemistry entitled Contributions to the Chemistry of Cyantrichloride, C1NCC12 he also received his Ph.D. in 1980 from the same institution. In 1981 he then did postdoctoral work at the Nuclear Research Center in Jiilich (Germany) under the supervision of Prof. Niimberg and Dr. Valenta, and conducted intensive electroanalytical research while he was there. Prof. Kalcher continued his academic career at KFU with his habilitation on chemically modified carbon paste electrodes in analytical chemistry in 1988. Since then, he has been employed there as an associate professor. His research interests include the development of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for the determination of inorganic and biological analytes on the basis of carbon paste, screen-printed carbon. 

Screen-printed electrodes consisted of a carbon conducting track with a terminal at one end for connection to the measuring equipment and a distal pad at the other, a layer containing cobalt phthalocyanine over the distal pad of the conducting track to facilitate electron transfer, an enzyme layer, where the enzyme inhibition takes place, over the cobalt phthalocyanine layer, and an insulation layer to prevent spurious reactions occurring down the length of the conducting tracks (Fig. 41.1). 

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