Laser-Cut Polymer Tape Templates for Scalable Filtration Fabrication of User-Designed and Carbon-Nanomaterial-Based Electrochemical Sensors

We report here a simple filtration method for the scalable fabrication of user-designed and carbon-nanomaterial-based electrode arrays using laser-cut poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) tape templates. This method can produce electrode arrays with high uniformity and low resistance from the dilute dispersions of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs). For these two carbon arrays, the SWNT array is demonstrated to possess several interesting properties, e.g., good mechanical properties, excellent flexibility, and favorable electrochemical behavior. Moreover, its porous structure enables the construction of a paperlike solid-state electrochemical sensor using Nafion electrolytes, which is suitable for the on-site monitoring of trace phenol pollutants in electrolyte-free water. Besides, an electrochemically addressable 36-zone sensor was constructed by this method. With the aid of an inexpensive 3D printer, the addressable sensor can achieve the semiautomatic and high-throughput evaluation of antioxidant capacity on a series of vegetables and fruits using a single-channel electrochemical analyzer.