Microfabrication techniques for the development of a miniaturized Hg-free ASV sensor for drinking water

ENVR 179

Lukasz Sztaberek, l0szta01@louisville.edu1, Michael D. Martin, michael.martin@louisville.edu2, Richard P. Baldwin, rick.baldwin@louisville.edu1, Thomas Roussel Jr.3, Robert Keynton3, Naber John2, and Kevin Walsh2. (1) Department of Chemistry, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, (2) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, (3) Department of Bioengineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292
Anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) is known as a highly sensitive method that is well suited for field analysis of heavy metals. In this project, our goal has been to develop and characterize a stand-alone ASV-based sensor for drinking water quality monitoring. In particular, we have employed microfabrication techniques to construct a miniaturized electrode platform for ASV that may be applicable for the continuous, remote monitoring of ppm-ppb levels of contaminants such as copper, lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.

Our current system contains an array of four (or more) microfabricated flow-through working electrodes on a 1-cm silicon chip together with pseudo-reference and auxiliary electrodes. The chip is fixed into PEEK™ platform. A primary advantage of microfabrication is that it allows one to create chips with several redundant working electrodes, operated independently (e.g., at different potentials) and even made of different materials (e.g., gold and bismuth), to permit optimum analysis of a range of metals. In addition, it also makes it possible to precisely control and vary electrode size and orientation down to the micron level.