Disposal screen-printed carbon paste electrodes for the potentiometric titration of surfactants

A simple, reliable, rapid and reproducible method for mass production of disposable carbon paste electrodes using screen-printing technology is described. The printed disposable potentiometric strips containing both working and reference electrodes are utilized as end-point indicator electrodes for the potentiometric titration of ionic surfactants in different samples. The home-made printing carbon ink formulations and printing conditions are investigated and discussed in details. The analytical performances of the printed electrodes are compared with those for carbon paste, coated wire, coated graphite and PVC polymeric membrane electrodes. The printed electrodes show very short response time reaching 3 s with adequate shelf-life (6 months). The proposed disposable strips have been successfully used for the potentiometric titration of cationic and anionic surfactants in their analytical grade solutions, pharmaceutical preparations, detergents and water samples with sensitivity comparable with the official method and ability of field measurement.