All-plastic, disposable, low detection limit ion-selective electrodes Original Research Article

A novel concept for all-plastic and all-solid-state ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) is introduced. Planar, flexible ion-selective electrodes, comprising only polymeric materials, with no internal solution, were obtained. The cast conducting polymer layer (obtained from aqueous suspension) was covered with a solvent polymeric based membrane to obtain a planar all-plastic sensor. The conducting polymer layer served both as electrical contact and as ion-to-electron transducer. To illustrate this concept, the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(4-styrenesulfonate) ions (PEDOT–PSS, Baytron P) was chosen. Due to interaction, analyte cations–poly(4-styrenesulfonate) anions, an extended linear range of potentiometric responses was obtained, with lowered detection limit. As example, Ca2+-selective and K+-selective all-plastic electrodes were fabricated and yielded with high selectivity, near Nernstian slopes and fast responses. The detection limits obtained for Ca2+- and K+-selective sensors were 5 × 10−9 M CaCl2 and 4.4 × 10−7 M KCl, respectively. The possibilities of modifying the conducting polymer-phase composition is highlighted. This method is extremely useful to tune the desired type of responses, and cannot be directly applied for electrochemically deposited conducting polymers.