A disposable amperometric sensor screen printed on a nitrocellulose strip: a glucose biosensor employing lead oxide as an interference-removing agent.

A new type of disposable amperometric sensor is devised by screen printing thick-film electrodes directly on a porous nitrocellulose (NC) strip. The chromatographic NC strip is then utilized to introduce various sample pretreatment layers. As a preliminary application, a glucose biosensor based on hydrogen peroxide detection is constructed by immobilizing glucose oxidase (GOx) on the NC electrode strip and by formulating a strong oxidation layer (i.e., PbO2) at the sample loading area, placed below the GOx reaction band. The screen-printed PbO2 paste serves as a sample pretreatment layer that removes interference by its strong oxidizing ability. Samples applied are carried chromatographically, via the PbO2 paste, to the GOx layer, and glucose is catalyzed to liberate hydrogen peroxide, which is then detected at the electrode surface. The proposed NC/PbO2 strip sensor is shown to be virtually insusceptible to interfering species such as acetaminophen and ascorbic and uric acids and to exhibit good performance, in terms of the sensor-to-sensor reproducibility (standard deviation, +/-0.026 - +/-0.086 microA), the sensitivity (slope, -0.183 microA/mM), and the linearity (correlation coefficient, 0.994 in the range of 0-10 mM).