This work deals with the development of an electronic system for portable electrochemical sensing. The presented acquisition module is able to operate in amperometry, voltammetry and potentiometry modes. The system can be optionally linked to a mobile readout device (as smartphone, tablet, etc.) using the Smart Bluetooth 4.1. The system is suitable for a wide range of portable and wearable applications spreading from biomedical to environmental monitoring. The system features small sizes, small weight, and ultra-low power consumption.
A new method for solid phase extraction (SPE) of environmental water samples is proposed. The developed prototype is cost-efficient and user friendly, and enables to perform rapid, automated and simple SPE. The pre-concentrated solution is compatible with analysis by immunoassay, with a low organic solvent content. A method is described for the extraction and pre-concentration of natural hormone 17β-estradiol in 100 ml water samples. Reverse phase SPE is performed with octadecyl-silica sorbent and elution is done with 200 µl of methanol 50% v/v. Eluent is diluted by adding di-water to lower the amount of methanol. After preparing manually the SPE column, the overall procedure is performed automatically within 1 hr. At the end of the process, estradiol concentration is measured by using a commercial enzyme-linked immune-sorbent assay (ELISA). 100-fold pre-concentration is achieved and the methanol content in only 10% v/v. Full recoveries of the molecule are achieved with 1 ng/L spiked de-ionized and synthetic sea water samples.
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