Potentiometric urea biosensor utilizing nanobiocomposite of chitosan-iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles

The iron oxide (Fe3O4) magnetic nanoparticles have been fabricated through a simple, cheap and reproducible approach. Scanning electron microscope, x-rays powder diffraction of the fabricated nanoparticles. Furthermore, the fabrication of potentiometric urea biosensor is carried out through drop casting the initially prepared isopropanol and chitosan solution, containing Fe3O4 nanoparticles, on the glass fiber filter with a diameter of 2 cm and a copper wire (of thickness similar to 500 mu m) has been utilized to extract the voltage signal from the functionalized nanoparticles. The functionalization of surface of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles is obtained by the electrostatically immobilization of urease onto the nanobiocomposite of the chitosan-Fe3O4 in order to enhance the sensitivity, specificity, stability and reusability of urea biosensor. Electrochemical detection procedure has been adopted to measure the potentiometric response over the wide logarithmic concentration range of the 0.1 mM to 80 mM. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles based urea biosensor depicts good sensitivity with similar to 42 mV per decade at room temperature. Durability of the biosensor could be considerably enhanced by applying a thin layer of the nafion. In addition, the reasonably stable output response of the biosensor has been found to be around 12 sec.