1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to multi-ion sensor and fabrication, and more particularly to multi-ion potential sensor and fabrication.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At the present day, it is more and more important that the electrochemistry sensor is applied to medical science and environment, such as examining and analyzing human parameters, and environment measurement. Chemical energy could be transformed to electric energy by the electrochemistry sensor, wherein three operation modes of the electrochemistry sensor comprise electric current mode, potential mode and impedance mode.
A multi-ion sensor integrated by combining many kinds of ion sensors is always applied in academic researches and commercial pursuits due to requirements about fabrication, environment, biology and medical science. Traditional multi-ion detect systems applied in laboratories are always large, broken easily and expensive.
In addition, the greater part materials could be printed by screen-printed method, for example plastics, textile fabrics, metals, glasses and ceramics could be printed by screen-printed method. Recently, many people research how to apply screen-printed method to biology and medical science, or electrochemistry sensing technology, such as [R. Koncki and M. Mascini, Screen-printed ruthenium dioxide electrodes for pH measurements, Analytica Chimica Acta 351(1997)143-149]
Therefore, in accordance with the previous summary, objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become apparent to one skilled in the art from the subsequent description and the appended claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
A multi-ion potential sensor fabrication method is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of: providing a substrate; forming a conductive layer on the substrate by using screen-printed method, wherein the conductive layer comprises a plurality of independent conductive areas, and each of the conductive areas comprises a readout area, a transmissive area and a sensing area, wherein the readout area is connected with one side of the transmissive area, and the sensing area is connected with the other side of the transmissive area; deposting a tin oxide layer on the conductive layer by vapor deposition method, wherein the tin oxide layer comprises a plurality of independent tin oxide areas, and each of the tin oxide areas is respectively deposited on each of the sensing areas; forming an isolation layer over each of the transmissive areas; forming a selective layer on the tin oxide layer, wherein the selective layer comprises a plurality of independent selective areas, and each of the selective areas is set on each of the tin oxide areas.
As well, a multi-ion potential sensor is disclosed. The multi-ion potential sensor comprises a substrate, a conductive layer, an isolation layer, a tin oxide (SnO2) layer and a selective layer. The conductive layer comprises a plurality of independent conductive areas on the substrate, wherein each of the conductive areas comprises a readout area, a transmissive area and a sensing area, and the transmissive area of each of the conductive areas is packaged by the isolation layer. The tin oxide layer comprises a plurality of independent tin oxide areas, wherein each of the tin oxide areas respectively is deposited on each of the sensing areas, and the selective layer comprises a plurality of independent selective areas, wherein each of the selective areas is set on each of the tin oxide areas.
A multi-ion potential system is also disclosed, wherein the multi-ion potential system comprises a plurality of amplifiers, a digital multi-meter, a computer, a reference electrode and the multi-ion potential sensor. The computer and the digital multi-meter compute and analyze signals amplified by the amplifiers, wherein the signals are outputted from the multi-ion potential sensor after the reference electrode and the multi-ion potential sensor are immersed in a solution.
The multi-ion potential sensor has various advantages, such as good sensitivity, low cost, simplicity, disposable, portable and data acquisition by a computer for different applications.
The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. In the drawings:
The present disclosure can be described by the embodiments given below. It is understood, however, that the embodiments below are not necessarily limitations to the present disclosure, but are used to a typical implementation of the invention.
Having summarized various aspects of the present invention, reference will now be made in detail to the description of the invention as illustrated in the drawings. While the invention will be described in connection with these drawings, there is no intent to limit it to the embodiment or embodiments disclosed therein. On the contrary the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
It is noted that the drawings presents herein have been provided to illustrate certain features and aspects of embodiments of the invention. It will be appreciated from the description provided herein that a variety of alternative embodiments and implementations may be realized, consistent with the scope and spirit of the present invention.
It is also noted that the drawings presents herein are not consistent with the same scale. Some scales of some components are not proportional to the scales of other components in order to provide comprehensive descriptions and emphasizes to this present invention.
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Then, a selective layer is formed on the tin oxide layer, wherein the selective layer comprises a plurality of independent selective areas 122, and each of the selective areas 122 is set on each of the tin oxide areas 120. Furthermore, the material of one of the selective areas 122 is different from another for filtering and detecting ions. For example, the material of one of the selective areas 122 could be sodium ion-selective membrane, and the material of another one of the selective areas 122 could be potassium ion-selective membrane, wherein the sodium ion-selective membrane could filter the sodium ions, and the potassium ion-selective membrane could filter the potassium ions.
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Because selective areas 122 could comprise at least one or any combination of the following: sodium ion-selective membrane and potassium ion-selective membrane according to above-mentioned, ions in the solution 160 could be filtered and detected when the multi-ion potential sensor 100 and the reference electrode 150 are immersed in the solution 160. In another word, sodium ions could be filtered by the sodium ion-selective membrane to be reacted with the tin oxide area 120, and potassium ions could be filtered by the potassium ion-selective membrane to be reacted with the tin oxide area 120. When oxidation-reduction reaction between the multi-ion potential sensor 100 and the solution 160 is resulted, potential signals would be resulted according to the potential difference between the multi-ion potential sensor 100 and the reference electrode 150, and the potential signals could be outputted by the readout areas 112.
The oxidation-reduction reaction between sensing areas 116 of the multi-ion potential sensor 100 and the solution 160 is shown as following:
MxOy+2yH++2ye−←→xM+yH2O
where M means a metal element; H+ means a hydrogen ion; O means an oxygen atom; e− means an electron; and x and y are constant, wherein MxOy could be SnO2 in the foregoing.
In addition, the potential of the sensing area 116 is changed linearly with pH as follows:
E=E°−RT ln 10/F pH−RT/F ln aH
Where E° is the reference potential, and aH
E=E°−RT ln 10/F pH
where RT ln 10/F is 0.059 Volt at 25° C.
In terms of experiments, the potential sensitivity of the multi-ion potential sensor 100 is about 50 mV/pH-60 mV/pH when the pH range is between pH 2 and pH 12. The average potential sensitivity is about 59 mV/pH, as shown in
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The digital multi-meter 172 could be a multi-channel circuit for reading out signals from the multi-ion potential sensor 100, which the multi-channel circuit could be integrated by commercialized electronic elements, wherein the signals from the multi-ion potential sensor 100 are transmitted to the computer 174 by a retrieving interface set according to characteristic of the electronic elements. The signals from the multi-ion potential sensor 100 could be corrected and analyzed by the computer 174 because the computer 174 is provided with a planned software.
In addition, each of the amplifiers 170 could be electronically coupled with each of the readout areas 112 by a separable device 176 for adding various advantages to the multi-ion potential sensor 100, such as the multi-ion potential sensor 100 could be portable and disposable, wherein the separable device 176 comprises a plurality of conductive pins, wherein the separable device comprises at least one or any combination of the following: USB (Universal Serial Bus), SD Card (Secure Digital Card), CF Card (Compact Flash Card), SM Card (Smart Media Card), Mini Card, MMC (Multimedia Card) and the socket thereof for transmitting signals and possessing the various advantages. For example, the SD Card could be connected with the amplifier 170, and the socket of the SD Card could be connected with the readout area 112. Besides, a plurality of conductive pins in the separable device 176 could be golden fingers.
Traditional reference Ag/AgCl electrode must contain electrolyzed solution for working, but the invention provides a solid-state reference electrode 180 without electrolyzed solution for avoiding the above-mentioned difficulty and microminiaturizing the solid-state reference electrode 180. Please refer to
A solid-state reference electrode 180 fabrication method is disclosed, wherein the method comprises the steps of: providing the silver layer 182 which is connected with the wire 190; electrifying the silver layer 182 to form the silver oxide layer 184 around the silver layer 182; forming the ion containing polymer 186 around the silver oxide layer 184; and forming the insulation layer 188 around the place of connection between the silver layer 182 and the wire 190.
The fabrication method of the ion containing polymer 186 comprises the steps of: mixing PVC-COOH, DOS and KCl powder; adding THF to PVC-COOH, DOS and KCl powder; and stirring PVC-COOH, DOS, KCl powder and THF in an ultrasonic bath.
The invention further provides a calibration procedure to calibrate the multi-ion potential sensor 100, wherein the calibration procedure comprises the steps of: immersing the multi-ion potential sensor 100 into a first calibration solution, and measuring a first output potential Y1 from the multi-ion potential sensor 100, wherein the first calibration solution includes a first ion concentration X1; immersing the multi-ion potential sensor 100 into a second calibration solution, and measuring a second output potential Y2 from the multi-ion potential sensor 100, wherein the second calibration solution includes a second ion concentration X2; and deriving the slope of the equation “Y=A+B X”.
The slope of the equation “Y=A+B X” is derived by the following steps, which comprises: deriving a first equation “Y1=A+B X1” by substituting the first output potential Y1 and the first ion concentration X1 into the equation “Y=A+B X”; deriving a second equation “Y2=A+B X2” by substituting the first output potential Y2 and the first ion concentration X2 into the equation “Y=A+B X”; and deriving the solution “A” and “B” by solving simultaneous equations of the first equation “Y1=A+B X1” and the second equation “Y2=A+B X2”, wherein “A” is the potential from the multi-ion potential sensor, and “B” is the slope of the equation “Y=A+B X” when “X” is zero.
After the calibration procedure is executed, the multi-ion potential sensor 100 is immersed into a sample solution for measuring an output potential from the multi-ion potential sensor 100 and deriving “X” by substituting the output potential into “Y”, wherein “X” is an ion concentration of the sample solution, and “Y” is the output potential of the multi-ion potential sensor 100.
Because the material of one of the selective areas 122 could be different from another, each of the selective areas 122 would have its own sensitivity graph, or there would be a corresponding equation with each of the selective areas 122. According to experiments, the sensitivity graph of pH is shown as
The sensitivity graph of the potassium ion concentration is shown as
In the same way, the sensitivity graph of the sodium ion concentration is shown as
As shown in
Upon the operation, the above mixed solution of urea/ PVA-SbQ about 10 μl can be fetched and dropped on the SnO2, and then the multi-ion potential sensor 100 can be placed and irradiated with an 4W ultraviolet light at 365 nm for 20 min. Since the illumination of the above ultraviolet light, which utilize the feature that a photopolymer will be polymerized during ultraviolet light exposure, can immobilize the urea enzyme on the selective area 122, and then complete the fabrication of the urea sensor.
As shown in
The foregoing description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Obvious modifications or variations are possible in light of the above teachings. In this regard, the embodiment or embodiments discussed were chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principles of the invention and its practical application to thereby enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. All such modifications and variations are within the scope of the inventions as determined by the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breath to which they are fairly and legally entitled.
It is understood that several modifications, changes, and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure and in some instances some features of the invention will be employed without a corresponding use of other features. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the appended claims be construed broadly and in a manner consistent with the scope of the invention.