Francisco Javier del Campo

BCMaterials - Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures | BCMaterials · Micro- and Nanodevices

The development of sustainable functional materials with strong potential to be applied in different areas has been growing and gaining increasing interest to address the environmental impact of current materials and technologies. In this scope, this work reports on sustainable functional materials with electrochromic properties, based on their inc...

The development and analytical applications of electrochemical sensors based on antimony tin oxide (ATO)–Prussian blue (PB) screen-printed electrode (SPE) and PEDOT-PB modified glassy carbon electrode are presented. The ATO-PB electrode was successfully applied in the electrochemical detection of K⁺ ions. The detection and quantification limits val...

The development of conformable electronic systems based on multifunctional smart materials will transform areas such as the automotive industry and biomedicine, as they allow improved integration and advanced functionalities. In‐Mold Electronics (IME) combines thermoforming and injection molding with custom designed printed electronics, resulting i...

The increasing awareness of the importance of water for human and environmental health has prompted the need for developing fast, user-friendly and cost-effective analytical approaches for quality control and management. This work reports the fabrication and analytical assessment of a very simple sample-to-result electrochemical sensor for discrete...

Mobile phones have been used in combination with point of care (PoC) devices for over a decade now. However, their use seems restricted to the detection of sensing events using the video and camera functions. In contrast, the complementary ability to use mobile phones to power such PoC devices has been largely unexplored. This work demonstrates the...

Screen printed graphite electrodes are widely used in electroanalysis, and increasingly in electrochemiluminescence (ECL) applications. However, their response is very dependent on graphite paste composition and electrode fabrication processes. This work studies the ECL of the tris(2,2’-bipyridyl)ruthenium (II) / tripropylamine (Ru(bpy)3²⁺/TPrA) sy...

Commercial screen-printed carbon electrodes have been treated with a CO2 laser energy of 12.8 mJ cm⁻² in air. This thermal treatment resulted in an increase in the crystallinity of the graphite and an enhancement in electron transfer rates, determined by Raman spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry, respectively. Laser treatment also facilitated the i...

In this work, the characterization and the electro-analytical applications of antimony tin oxide (ATO)–Prussian blue (PB) screen printed electrodes (SPE) are presented. The ATO conducting particles have been used recently in the development of screen-printed electrodes due to their excellent spectroelectrochemical properties. PB is a transition met...

Smartphones are becoming increasingly versatile thanks to the wide variety of sensor and actuator systems packed in them. Mobile devices today go well beyond their original purpose as communication devices, and this enables important new applications, ranging from augmented reality to the Internet of Things. Personalized diagnostics is one of the a...

Lithium-ion batteries, LIBs are ubiquitous through mobile phones, tablets, laptop computers and many other consumer electronic devices. Their increasing demand, mainly driven by the implementation of the electric vehicles, brings several environmental issues related to the mining, extraction and purification of scarce materials such as cobalt, nick...

Screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCE) are enjoying increasing popularity in different electrochemistry areas, from electroanalysis to energy storage and power generation. Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), an ordered form of graphite,...

Cyanobacterial blooms produce hazardous toxins, deplete oxygen, and secrete compounds that confer undesirable organoleptic properties to water. To prevent bloom appearance, the World Health Organization has established an alert level between 500 and 2000 cells·mL–1, beyond the capabilities of most optical sensors detecting the cyanobacteria fluores...

One of the limitations of many skin-patch wearable sensors today is their dependence on silicon-based electronics, increasing their complexity and unit cost. Self-powered sensors, in combination with electrochromic materials, allow simplifying the construction of these devices, leading to powerful analytical tools that remove the need for external...

Legionella is a pathogenic bacterium, ubiquitous in freshwater environments and able to colonise man-made water systems from which it can be transmitted to humans during outbreaks. The prevention of such outbreaks requires a fast, low cost, automated and often portable detection system. In this work, we present a combination of sample concentration...

Microfluidic technologies are highly adept at generating controllable compositional gradients in fluids, a feature that has accelerated the understanding of the importance of chemical gradients in biological processes. That said, the development of versatile methods to generate controllable compositional gradients in the solid‐state has been far mo...

Microbial biosensors can be an excellent alternative to classical methods for toxicity monitoring, which are time-consuming and not sensitive enough. However, bacteria typically connect to electrodes through biofilm formation, leading to problems due to lack of uniformity or long device production times. A suitable immobilisation technique can over...

Wearable electrochemical sensors represent a point of convergence between lab-on-a-chip technologies, advanced microelectronics and connected intelligence. These three pillars establish data flow from analytes present in body fluids, to the Cloud infrastructures towards next-generation personal healthcare and wellness. The design of electrode-embed...

Electrochromic materials are becoming increasingly important in analytical devices and applications. Their opto-electronic properties make them particularly useful in the development of electronics-free, self-powered sensors. However, the mass manufacture of such devices is often limited by the need for transparent electrodes and liquid electrolyte...

Malaria, a parasitic infection caused by Plasmodium parasites and transmitted through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitos, is one of the main causes of mortality in many developing countries. Over 200 million new infections and nearly half a million deaths are reported each year, and more than three billion people are at risk of acquiri...

This cover Picture shows the design of Polymer Magenta inks and Green Electrolytes for screen‐printable electrohromic devices. More details are discussed in the manuscript entitled “Screen‐Printable Electrochromic Polymer Inks and Ion Gel Electrolytes for the Design of Low‐Power, Flexible Electrochromic Devices” by Sara Santiago, Miguel Aller, F. J...

We have developed electrochromic inks and electrolyte materials to enable mass production of flexible electrochromic displays (ECDs) and other optoelectronic devices by screen printing. Here we present a new screen‐printable ink incorporating electrochromic polymer, poly(3,4‐propylenedioxythiophene)bis(ethylhexyloxy), referred to here as ECP‐Magent...

Prussian Blue (PB)-modified graphite screen-printed electrodes are increasingly being used in electrochemical biosensors. However, they do not allow the observation of the electrochromism of PB. This work presents the construction of PB-based, electrochromic screen-printed biosensors. Although electrically more resistive than their graphite counter...

Electrochromic sensors are electrochemical devices exploiting colour changes as a means to simplify device construction and instrumentation requirements. Despite their advantages, electrochromic sensors have begun to emerge only recently. Mainly based on the works appeared in the literature over the past 2 years, we describe the construction and op...

Smart wearables, among immediate future IoT devices, are creating a huge and fast growing market that will encompass all of the next decade by merging the user with the Cloud in a easy and natural way. Biological fluids, such as sweat, tears, saliva and urine offer the possibility to access molecular-level dynamics of the body in a non-invasive way...

Effecting oxidation reactions electrochemically dispenses with the need for reactive and potentially toxic reagents but barriers remain towards wide adoption of the technique, in part because of negative prior experiences with batch-mode reactions. Electrochemical flow set-ups fix the electrodes to maintain a uniformly narrow gap, and can operate c...

Spectroelectrochemistry studies spectral changes as a function of applied potential or current. While there is no standard experimental setup, transparent electrodes are most typically used in transmission mode. Working in reflection mode forces light across the sample twice, resulting in higher sensitivities, but in turn requires the use of highly...

Magnetic beads (MB) have been extensively used to produce sensitive and efficient electrochemical magneto-immunosensors. However, MB effective handling requires training, and MB washing after each incubation step is time consuming and contributes to raise result variability. Consequently, most of the electrochemical magneto-immunosensors reported t...

This article proposes the exploitation of ohmic drop in the development of novel electrochromic devices. Electrochromic materials enable the construction of more efficient self-powered biosensors incorporating the ability to display information without the involvement of silicon-based electronics. Numerical simulations are employed to describe the...

In article number 1701920, by Carlos A. Saura, Jaume Esteve, and co-workers, suspended silicon microphotodiodes are fabricated as a simple and cost-effective microtool able to deliver photocurrent in liquid media. Electrical and electrochemical characterization under on/off illumination conditions was performed. Their effectiveness as remote photov...

Local electric stimulation of tissues and cells has gained importance as therapeutic alternative in the treatment of many diseases. These alternatives aim to deliver a less invasively stimuli in liquid media, making imperative the development of versatile micro- and nanoscale solutions for wireless actuation. Here, a simple microfabrication process...

In this chapter an introduction to the different types of Point-of-Care (POC) devices is presented. The variety of these devices is quite important in terms of device design considerations, which depends on their field of application, and budget constrains. The impact of POC in healthcare landscape is increasing. There is a special interest on port...

This chapter presents in detail the design and validation of specific instrumentation electronics regarding ac and dc electrochemical applications. The development of such electronics will be defined through a design architecture that will build up for an easy and understandable way for its design and validation for different applications.

This chapter focuses on the conception and design of an autonomous and disposable multi-parametric analyzer for the early diagnosis of diabetes mellitus and its different associated risk factors.

This book is about instrumentation with a strong focus on the electronics side of point of care devices. However, the mission of those electronics is to control and read electrochemical sensors accurately and reliably. Although those developing the electronics are neither expected nor required to be experts in Electrochemistry, it is highly desirab...

Different electronics solutions are introduced in the present book from an advanced point of view. Some applications are introduced where these electronic circuits are implemented like in the case of the glucometer. This chapter aims to introduce a comprehensive approach to electronic circuits, techniques and electrochemical sensors in POC devices...

This chapter describes the AC techniques for detection, quantification and monitoring of diluted cells suspensions. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Impedance Analysis (IA) are the techniques presented on this chapter as means to develop a compact, portable and user-friendly solution for accurate, reliable, and cost-effective cellul...

Introduction. Using magnetic beads (MB) allows production of electrochemical immunomagnetic sensors of superior performance than classical immunosensors [1]. However, immunomagnetic sensors involve numerous steps and tedious handling. We show that electrochemical lateral flow strips (ELFS) produced by a simple and low-cost screen printing procedure...

Inkjet printing is a digital and non-contact printing technique that is beginning to be used in the manufacture of electronic devices, including electrochemical sensors. This article covers the main works featuring inkjet printing for the production of electrochemical sensors, and focuses especially on the works reported since 2015. The main factor...

Sinusoidal voltages (SV) of fixed frequency were used in the preparation of electrochemical biosensors based on gold (Au) disk microelectrode arrays (MEAs) modified with a bio-composite material consisting of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) conducting polymer (PEDOT) and tyrosinase (Tyr). The SV was applied over a d.c. potential of 0.60 V vs. Ag/A...

Paper has been used for long in the production of low-cost point-of-care (POC) detection devices, most of which rely on the detection of colour bands by the user. However, test strips rarely provide quantitative detection of biomarkers in clinical samples. In contrast, electrochemical detection enables quantitative detection in paper-based immunoas...

The book presents the conception and realization of a pervasive electronic architecture for electrochemical applications, focusing on electronic instrumentation design and device development, particularly in electrochemical Point-of-Care and Lab-on-a-Chip devices, covering examples based on amperometric (DC) and impedance detection (AC) techniques....

Self-powered sensors are analytical devices able to generate their own energy, either from the sample itself or from their surroundings. The conventional approaches rely heavily on silicon-based electronics, which results in increased complexity and cost, and prevents the broader use of these smart systems. Here we show that electrochromic material...

Inkjet printing is a promising alternative manufacturing method to conventional standard micro-fabrication techniques for the development of flexible and low-cost devices. Although the use of inkjet printing for the deposition of selected materials for the development of sensor devices has been reported many times in literature, it is still a chall...

We present a small, compact and low-power electronic instrumentation for a point-of-care (PoC) device for the early diagnosis of diabetes mellitus and associated risk factors. The presented system consists of a low-power 4-channel potentiostat, a transducer with 4 separate electrochemical cells featuring different biosensors, and a low-cost printed...

This work presents a first approach towards the development of a cost-effective enzymatic paper-based glucose/O2 microfluidic fuel cell in which fluid transport is based on capillary action. A first fuel cell configuration consists of a Y-shaped paper device with the fuel and the oxidant flowing in parallel over carbon paper electrodes modified wit...

This work addresses the development of a compact paper-based enzymatic microfluidic glucose/O2 fuel cell that can operate using a very limited sample volume (≈35 µl) and explores the energy generated by glucose at concentrations typically found in blood samples at physiological conditions (pH 7.4). Carbon paper electrodes combined with a paper samp...

Combining magnetic particle (MP) affinity binding and electrochemical detection results in efficient and fast bioassays. While MP allow concentration and separation of target analytes from other species present in a sample, electrochemistry provides fast and sensitive detection. Although numerous magnetic racks are commercially available for MP han...

A straightforward and very cost effective method is proposed to prototype screen-printed electrodes using pressure sensitive adhesives and a simple cutting technique. Two cutting methods, namely blade cutting and CO2 laser ablation, are compared and their respective merits are discussed. The proposed method consists in turning the protective liner...

Electrochemical methods of chemical analysis have been widely used for many years, most especially the trusty pH electrode and conductivity meter, but also in the mass-manufactured glucose test strips which place electrochemical measurements into the hands of non-scientists. The purpose of this volume is to address advances that will enable new mea...

We present a small, compact and portable envisaged lab-on-a-chip (LoC) device for point-of-care (PoC) detection of different key parameters on diabetes mellitus analysis; glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides and hematocrit. These four parameters, present in blood samples, are important in the standardized analysis affecting different patients with d...

We present a small, compact and portable envisaged lab-on-a-chip (LoC) device for point-of-care (PoC) detection of different key parameters on diabetes mellitus analysis; glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides and hematocrit. These four parameters, present in blood samples, are important in the standardized analysis affecting different patients with d...

Electrical power enables enhanced functionalities in point-of-care diagnostics. This paper presents the first paper-based hydrogen fuel cell, harnessing the hydrogen generated as a by-product of an exothermic reaction used in point-of-care nucleic acid amplification devices. The electrical power produced by the fuel cell can be used for other assay...

The development of a low-cost multiparametric platform for enzymatic electrochemical biosensing that can be integrated in a disposable, energy autonomous analytical device is the target of the current work. We propose a technology to fabricate nano-electrodes and ultimately biosensors on flexible polymeric-based substrates (cyclo olefin polymer, an...

This work describes the design and fabrication of a miniaturized flow cell for the chronoamperometric detection of Mieloperoxidase (MPO), a cardiac biomarker. The flow cell consists of a microfluidic cartridge made of a series of cyclo-olefin polymer (COP) and pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) layers, featuring four independent channels and their c...

Simultaneous electrochemical determination of dopamine and catechol was achieved at gold (Au) disk microelectrode arrays (MEAs) and interdigitated microband electrode arrays (IDEs), modified with a bio-composite material consisting of single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT), functionalized with carboxylic groups, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDO...

A biocomposite material of tyrosinase and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) was electrodeposited onto gold (Au) disk microelectrode arrays and Au interdigitated microband electrode arrays (IDEs) by using a combination of sinusoidal voltages and microgravimetric method to construct amperometric biosensors for dopamine (DA). The main advantage of this...

A novel microelectrode array sensor was fabricated usingMEMS technology on a needle, and then applied to realtime measurement of dissolved oxygen (DO) inside biofilms. The sensor consists of eleven gold disk microelectrodes, a rectangular auxiliary electrode along them, and an external and internal reference electrode. Three kinds of sensors were d...

A hydrogen peroxide biosensor was fabricated by immobilization of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) onto the surface of interdigitated microband electrodes. The interdigitated microband electrodes show an amplification factor of ∼9.1 with a collection efficiency of 0.97, demonstrating a high efficiency in generator-collector experiments. Electrochemical...

In this work we report on the production of a low cost microfluidic device for the multiplexed electrochemical detection of magneto bioassays. As a proof of concept, the device has been used to detect myeloperoxidase (MPO), a cardiovascular biomarker. With this purpose, two bioassays have been optimized in parallel onto magnetic beads (MBs) for the...

This article describes the design, fabrication and characterization of a compact and deployable heavy metal analyzer. The system is autonomous and its microcontroller enables the configuration of its four micropumps and the application of different electroanalytical techniques. A range of prototyping and manufacturing techniques have been used in t...

A novel microelectrode array (DO-MEA) sensor was designed and fabricated using microelectromechanical systems technology on a needle for real time measurement of dissolved oxygen (DO). The sensor consisted of eleven gold disk microelectrodes and a rectangular auxiliary electrode along them. The sensor can also be operated with an integrated referen...

This paper addresses the electrochemical growth of PtAg and Au nanoparticles on pyrolyzed photoresist films (PPFs). The PtAg/PPF electrode was evaluated toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the absence and presence of glucose; meanwhile the electrocatalytic activity of Au/PPF was investigated for the glucose electrooxidation reaction (GOR) in...