DESIGN OF BIOCOMPATIBLE ASPARAGINE-GRAPHENE OXIDE FREE CHLORINE SENSORS FABRICATED USING SOLUTION BASED PROCESSING

Abstract

Chlorine is used as a powerful disinfectant in water-related industries and in the food industry to remove bacteria and other harmful contaminants. We present a solution-based fabrication process for a biodegradable electrochemical free chlorine sensor using asparagine that is functionalized onto graphene oxide (GO). An ink solution of the GO functionalized with asparagine was fabricated then deposited onto a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) using a spin-coater. The sensor showed high a sensitivity of 0.30 μA ppm−1 over a linear range of 0 to 8 ppm with a hysteresis-limited resolution of 0.2 ppm, very high selectivity in the presence of commonly interfering ions, and an operating voltage well below the reduction potential of dissolved oxygen. The sensor response time to achieve a steady state was 50 s, and it showed little change in its drift response over 16 h and over a temperature range of 10 to 45 °C. From the development of the free chlorine sensor, over 9000 datapoints were collected and used for training a neural network model to quantify and characterize factors affecting the free chlorine sensor performance. A readout system was designed with a printed circuit board and an android app to simplify free chlorine sensing for an end user.