Simple and cost-effective pH and T sensors from top to bottom: New chemical probes based on sonogel-carbon transducers for plasma analyses

Abstract

The present work introduces two novel approaches to fabricate simple and cost-effective pH and temperature probes. Sinusoidal voltage methodologies were employed to electrodeposit polyaniline (PANI) at different growth times (10–20 min) on the surface of an affordable Sonogel-Carbon electrode to conform a robust pH sensor. The presence of PANI and its phases were corroborated by electrochemical means. The sensibility, reversibility and selectivity of the produced sensor were very adequate to apply it in physiological samples. In this regard, the proposed sensor was evaluated in artificial blood serum as well as untreated plasma samples obtaining outstanding results in comparison with a gold reference technique (error <2 %). In addition, a new composite sonogel material, intrinsically modified with multiwalled carbon nanotubes, was attached on top of an electrode couple to one-step fabricate a new temperature probe, relating resistance of the probe with the surroundings temperature. In this case, an optical microscopy characterization was performed to study the sturdiness of the layer. Remarkably, suitable results in terms of sensitivity and selectivity were obtained. The probes were assessed in artificial and untreated plasma samples as well, with the corresponding validation step (error <1 %) by using a commercial temperature probe.