African Physical Review (2007) 1 Special Issue (Microfluidics):0003 6
A Numerical Simulation of Amperometric Biosensor Effect
of Enzyme Loading and Stirring Strength on Biosensors Performance
A. Benyahia and S. Bacha
Laboratoire de Gnie de lEnvironnement, Universit Abderrahmane MIRA de Bjaia, Route de Targa Ouzemmour, Algeria
1. Introduction The above equation as well as initial and
boundary conditions are integrated over controlled Biosensors are defined as analytical devices volumes according to Finite Volume Method incorporating a physicochemical transducer (or (FVM) and the set of algebraic equation are solved transducing system) and biologically active material numerically by Thomas algorithm. The algorithm is integrated with it. The amperometric biosensor is written in Visual Fortran and run on a Pentium III one of the types of biosensors which typically rely PC (733 kHz) processor. The model is applied to on an enzyme system that catalytically converts an simulate the response of the biosensors versus many electrochemically non-active analyte into products parameters such as the amount of the immobilized that can be oxidized or reduced at a working enzyme, the membrane thickness and the thickness electrode. Modelling of biosensors is of crucial of the diffusion. importance in order to understand their behaviour, which began with the work of Gough et al., [1], G. 3. Influence of the internal resistance on the Jobst et al., [2] and S.D. Caras et al., [3,4,5]. S. signal magnitude Bacha et al. [6.7] developed a model that takes into account a variety of configuration designs. To study the effect of the internal resistance, a In the present work, we have developed a diffusion layer thickness is taken deliberately equal mathematical model in order to describe and to 0. This leads to a value of Bi = . One can see evaluate the performance of amperometric that the maximal magnitude of the biosensor, which biosensors. The chosen configuration is the one corresponds to the steady state current, increases most used nowadays in the design of enzymatic with an increase in the quantity of enzyme. Another biosensors such as the polymeric matrices as interesting feature is that the maximum current enzyme supports and the mass production of density does not exceed a limit of 11.56 A/cm2 biosensors by the screen-printing technique. regardless of the amount of immobilized enzyme. The maximum dimensionless current density max 2. Main Results versus Thiele modulus is linear up to a value of =2. No further increase of max is obtained The sensors considered consist of a metallic beyond this value whatever is the Thieles modulus electrode surface, a membrane held against the value. surface electrode and a diffusion layer adjacent to the outer surface of the membrane. In the enzyme 4. Effect of external resistance to mass membrane, the substrate S is concerted to an transfer electroactive product P which is detected. Coupling the enzyme catalysed reaction in enzyme layer with To study the effect of external resistance to mass the one-dimensional-in-space diffusion, described transfer, values of =7 and =1 are taken to by Ficks second law, leads to the following perform the simulation. The diffusion layer equation: thickness e is chosen to ensure value of Bi from 0.5 to 50 (i.e. for diffusion layer thickness e [C ] 2 [C ] v max v [C ] varying from 200 to 2 m). Results show that the = Dc magnitude of the response increase with the t x 2 ks + [C ] c decrease of the diffusion layer thickness, but one where C may be S or P. should highlight that for Bi=1 and Bi=0.5, there is a The current density is calculated by estimating peak of 6.6 A/cm2 approximately at t=4s. The the gradient of the electroactive species at the maximum current density at Bi value equal to 50 surface of electrode. African Physical Review (2007) 1 Special Issue (Microfluidics):0003 7
(well stirred solutions) is 1.8 times its value at Bi References
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