An all-solid-state amperometric ethanol sensor

A new amperometric enzyme electrode for alcohol determination

A new enzyme electrode for the determination of alcohols was developed by immobilizing alcohol oxidase in polvinylferrocenium matrix coated on a Pt electrode surface. The amperometric response due to the electrooxidation of enzymatically generated H(2)O(2) was measured at a constant potential of +0.70 V versus SCE. The effects of substrate, buffer and enzyme concentrations, pH and temperature on the response of the electrode were investigated. The optimum pH was found to be pH 8.0 at 30 degrees C. The steady-state current of this enzyme electrode was reproducible within +/-5.0% of the relative error. The sensitivity of the enzyme electrode decreased in the following order: methanol>ethanol>n-butanol>benzyl alcohol. The linear response was observed up to 3.7 mM for methanol, 3.0 mM for ethanol, 6.2 mM for n-butanol, and 5.2 mM for benzyl alcohol. The apparent Michaelis-Menten constant (K(Mapp)) value and the activation energy, E(a), of this immobilized enzyme system were found to be 5.78 mM and 38.07 kJ/mol for methanol, respectively.

Protease determination using an optimized alcohol enzyme electrode

A new method for the determination of protease activities is described. In this large family, trypsin is used as a protease model that cleaves the ethyl or methyl ester of artificial substrates producing ethanol or methanol. Alcohol is detected using an alcohol oxidase enzyme electrode. The H2O2 production that occurs is measured amperometrically. At 30 degrees C, in a 0.1M phosphate buffer, pH 7.5, the enzyme electrode response for ethanol was calibrated at 3.10(-6)-3.10(-3)M and for methanol from 3.10(-7) to 4.10(-4)M in the cell measurement. Trypsin levels as determined by the proposed method and by a conventional spectrophotometric method are in good agreement when using the same measurement conditions. A detection limit of 10 U.L-1 and a linear calibration curve of 10-100,000 U.L-1 in the sample were obtained. Measuring time for the required trypsin solution concentration was from 4 min (for the most dilute samples) to 1 min (for the most concentrate samples). In a typical experiment, protease measurements did not inactivate the alcohol oxidase on the probe, nor did a more classical use for alcohol detection. The procedure developed could permit any protease estimation on the condition that they hydrolyze ester bonds from synthetic substrate.

Applied biosensors

Biosensors are important analytical tools in clinical and environmental monitoring, biotechnological process control, medicine, and in the food and drink industry. This review devotes attention to the most common biosensor in biotechnology, the glucose biosensor, and to recent contributions to the rapidly growing field of optical biosensors. Trends and developments in these areas are discussed.