Polishing of screen-printed electrodes improves IgG adsorption

The screen-printing technology has several advantages over the others for industrial sensor production. In fact, it has the advantage of its heterogeneic nature, which is very similar to carbon paste electrodes, combined with the properties of solid electrodes. Carbon ink may be modified with metallic particles, mediators, biocomponents, etc. Carbon screen-printed electrode (SPE) may be coated with additional layers by again screen-printing, adsorption, electropolymerization, etc. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of polishing the carbon SPE for the active electrode area, for adsorption properties, and for reproducibility. Two polishing methods were investigated, a gentle method using an office paper, and an aggressive one using an emery paper (SiC 240 mum). The adsorption of rabbit immunoglobulin (IgG) was significantly enhanced in the order, emery paper > office paper > original. The reproducibility between electrodes was found to be in this order, office paper > emery paper > original. The electrode area was not significantly affected by any polishing. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.