Screen-printed back-to-back electroanalytical sensors

Abstract

We introduce the concept of screen-printed back-to-back electroanalytical sensors where in this facile and generic approach, screen-printed electrodes are printed back-to-back with a common electrical connection to the two working electrodes with the counter and reference electrodes for each connected in the same manner as a normal “traditional” screen-printed sensor would be. This approach utilises the usually redundant back of the screen-printed sensor, converting this “dead-space” into a further electrochemical sensor which results in improvements in the analytical performance. In the use of the back-to-back design, the electrode area is consequently doubled with improvements in the analytical performance observed with the analytical sensitivity (gradient of a plot of peak height/analytical signal against concentration) doubling and the corresponding limit-of-detection being reduced. We also demonstrate that through intelligent electrode design, a quadruple in the observed analytical sensitivity can also be realised when double microband electrodes are used in the back-to-back configuration as long as they are placed sufficiently apart such that no diffusional interaction occurs. Such work is generic in nature and can be facilely applied to a plethora of screen-printed (and related) sensors utilising the commonly overlooked redundant back of the electrode providing facile improvements in the electroanalytical performance.