Carbon nanofibres (CNFs) and graphite flake microparticles were added to thermoplastic polystyrene polymer with the aim of making new conductive blends suitable for 3D‐printing. Various polymer/carbon blends were evaluated for suitability as printable, electroactive material. An electrically conducting polystyrene composite was developed and used with commercially available polystyrene (HIPS) to manufacture electrodes suitable for electrochemical experiments. Electrodes were produced and evaluated for cyclic voltammetry of aqueous 1,1’‐ferrocenedimethanol and differential pulse voltammetry detection of aqueous Pb2+ via anodic stripping. A polystyrene/CNF/graphite (80/10/10 wt%) composite provides good conductivity and a stable electrochemical interface with well‐defined active geometric surface area. The printed electrodes form a stable interface to the polystyrene shell, give good signal to background voltammetric responses, and are reusable after polishing.

The application of a novel fully 3-D printed carbon nanofiber-graphite-polystyrene electrode has been investigated for the trace determination of Zn 2+ by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry. The possibility of utilising a carbon pseudo-reference electrode was found to be successful. The effect of accumulation potential and time were investigated and optimised. Using an accumulation potential of-2.9 V (vs. C) and an accumulation time of 75 s a single sharp anodic stripping peak was recorded exhibiting a linear response from 12.7 µg/L to 450 µg/L. The theoretical detection limit (3σ) was calculated as 8.6 µg/L. Using the optimised conditions a mean recovery of 97.8 %, (%CV = 2.0 %, n = 5) for a tap water sample fortified at 0.990 µg/mL was obtained indicating the method holds promise for the determination of Zn 2+ in such samples.

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Transparent nano-structured hematite (α-Fe2O3) films of approximately 550 nm thickness on tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) have been obtained conveniently by ink-jet printing of a Fe(NO3)3 / Brij® O10 precursor ink and subsequent annealing at 500 °C in air. When illuminated with a blue LED ( = 455 nm, ca. 100 mW cm -2 ), the hematite films exhibited photocurrents of up to 70 A cm -2 at 0.4 V vs. SCE in 0.1 M NaOH electrolyte. Thermal annealing in vacuum at 500 °C for 2 h increased photocurrents more than three times to 230 A cm -2 in agreement with previous literature reports for pure hematite materials.These results suggest that a simple ink-jetting process with surfactants is viable. The effects of vacuum-annealing on the photoelectrical properties of α-Fe2O3 films are discussed in terms of a sub-surface state templating hypothesis based on data gathered from phototransients, field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, X-ray diffraction, photocurrent spectra, and cyclic voltammetry.