Cost-Effective 3D-Printed-Enabled Fluidic Electrochemical Sensing Platform for Quantitative Electroanalytical Applications

3D-printing is an open access manufacturing technology that facilitates prototyping of economical devices for scientific purposes. Coupled with the emergence of commercially available cost-efficient screen-printed electrodes (SPEs), 3D-printing has enabled the fabrication of cost-effective fluidic sensing platforms with removable/disposable electrodes. However, quantitative electrochemical detection of analytes in 3D-printed flow-cells integrated with SPEs is yet to be achieved. In this work, the successful implementation of a cost-effective 3D-printed-enabled fluidic electrochemical sensing platform (3DP-FESP) for the quantitative detection of dopamine (DA) in the presence of uric acid (UA), and ascorbic acid (AA) is demonstrated. The 3DP-FESP consists of a reversibly sealed 3D-printed flow-cell integrated with removable SPEs electrochemically activated to increase sensitivity towards DA. The flow-cell was fabricated through fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D-printing and Embedded SCAffold RemovinG Open Technology (ESCARGOT). The 3DP-FESP was characterized to determine its optimal flow rate and ensure enhancement of the quantitative performance of the SPEs under flow conditions. As a result, the performance of our 3DP-FESP (flow conditions) was better than only activated SPEs (stagnant conditions) for DA detection in the presence of interferents with LODs of 0.05 mu M and 0.16 mu M, respectively. This demonstrates the potential of our cost-effective 3DP-FESP for enhanced quantitative electroanalytical applications.