Screen Printed Electrodes

Screen Printed Electrodes List

Screen printed electrodes are prepared by using screen printing technology. By depositing one or several layers of printing ink in a certain sequence on the insulation support body or substrate, screen printed electrode can be obtained, and the printing ink can be gold, silver, platinum, carbon ink and the others. The basic principles of the preparation process are described below. The mesh of screen printed plate image part can pass through the ink and the ink would leak to the substrate. The rest of the plate are blocked, and the ink cannot go through, so the blank formed in the substrate. Therefore, only the specific area can form screen printed structure. Screen printed electrode is a flexible sensor element with special recognition, high sensitivity, low cost and commercial production. Screen printed electrode can provide reliable basis for the development of portable sensors, on-line and real-time detection and fast analysis, which has a great application prospect in many fields.

Applications:

• Food testing field: Food safety is the most concerned issue among numerous public safety issues. Due to the high sensitivity, reproducibility and low cost, electrochemical sensors based on screen printed electrodes are widely used in food safety detection. Moreover, electrochemical enzyme sensor and electrochemical immune sensor are two kinds of widely used sensors in this field. Furthermore, the electrochemical immune sensors include electrochemical immune sensor based on gold nanoparticle sol modified electrode, electrochemical immune sensor based on multi-functional nanomaterial modified electrode and electrochemical immune sensor based on conductive polymer modified electrode.

Figure 1. An example of screen printed electrode applied in food testing field.

• Heavy metal ion detection field: Heavy metal elements in the environment, such as mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic, copper and the others, are a class of high-risk pollutants, which is non-degradable, and easy to accumulate in organisms for a long time. Various ecosystems are affected to varying degrees by heavy metal ions. Therefore, it is of great significance to establish a sensitive, quick and simple method for heavy metal ion detection. Screen printed electrode can be used as working electrode in stripping voltammetry. Compared with the traditional solid electrode, screen printed electrode is easy to carry and the cost is low.
• The others: With the development of science and technology, the application fields of screen printed electrode are gradually expanding, such as catalytic field, biological field and the others.

Classification:

According to the electrode systems, screen printing electrodes can be divided into two-electrode screen printed electrode and three-electrode screen printed electrode.

• Two-electrode screen printed electrode: Two-electrode screen printed electrode consists of two electrodes including working electrode and reference electrode.
• Three-electrode screen printed electrode: Three-electrode screen printed electrode consists of three electrodes including working electrode, opposite electrode and reference electrode.

Figure 2. Fabrication of three-electrode screen printed electrode on chemically inert substrate.

Reference

1. Alina Vasilescu, Gilvanda Nunes, Akhtar Hayat, et.al. Electrochemical Affinity Biosensors Based on Disposable Screen-Printed Electrodes for Detection of Food Allergens[J]. Sensors, 2016.