Aerosol-jet-printed graphene electrochemical histamine sensors for food safety monitoring

Abstract

Carbon nanomaterials such as graphene exhibit unique material properties such as high electrical conductivity, surface area, and biocompatibility that have the potential to significantly improve the performance of electrochemical sensors. Since in-field electrochemical sensors are typically disposable, they require materials that are amenable to low-cost, high-throughput, and scalable manufacturing. Conventional graphene devices based on low-yield chemical vapor deposition techniques are too expensive for such applications, while low-cost alternatives such as screen and inkjet printing do not possess sufficient control over electrode geometry to achieve favorable electrochemical sensor performance. In this work, aerosol jet printing (AJP) is used to create high-resolution (~40 µm line width) interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) on flexible substrates, which are then converted into histamine sensors by covalently linking monoclonal antibodies to oxygen moieties created on the graphene surface through a CO2 thermal annealing process. The resulting electrochemical sensors exhibit a wide histamine sensing range of 6. 25-200 ppm (56.25 µM -1.8 mM) and a low detection limit of 3.41 ppm (30.7 µM) within actual tuna broth samples. These sensor metrics are significant since histamine levels over 50 ppm in fish induce adverse health effects including severe allergic reactions (e.g., Scombroid food poisoning).Beyond the histamine case study presented here, the AJP and functionalization process can likely be generalized to a diverse range of sensing applications including environmental toxin detection, foodborne pathogen detection, wearable health monitoring, and health diagnostics.

Additive Manufacturable Materials for Electrochemical Biosensor Electrodes

“…Apart from this, recent work has demonstrated AJP can be used to detect glucose, cytokines, proteins, and histamine. [ 21,280–282 ] Electrodes with trace widths as low as 15 µm can be achieved, and as expected, both the printing speed and number of deposited layers affect the dimensions of the traces, and consequently the electrochemical properties. [ 283 ] These studies demonstrate that AJP is a versatile AM technology, capable of achieving high resolution electrodes with complex geometries.…”

Scalably Nanomanufactured Atomically Thin Materials‐Based Wearable Health Sensors

“…During an aerosol jet printing (AJP) process, the ink is atomized through a pneumatic or ultrasonic mechanism and directed to the substrate by a sheath gas flow. [ 558–561 ] The AJP process is compatible with a wide range of ink viscosity and can be applied to print functional materials on various substrates. [ 562,563 ] For example, Parate et al [ 560 ] demonstrated the AJP fabrication of a graphene‐based field electrochemical histamine sensor.…”

Biogenic Amines Detection by Chromatography and Sensor Methods: A Comparative Review

“…Tuna sh His Chemical sensor using aerosol -jet -printed graphene 3.1 x 10 −5 (Parate et al, 2020) Marine sh His Amperometric biosensor using diamine oxidase and peroxidase as molecular recognition element Not de ned (Trevisani et al, 2017) Food products Voltammetric sensor based on molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) 7.4 x 10 −11 (Akhoundian et al, 2017) Chicken meat Put, Cad, Tyr Amperometric biosensor using pea seedling amine oxidase (PSAO) as molecular recognition element 1.2-4.5 x 10 −5 Telsnig et al…”