dc.description.abstract |
Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the world. Even
though insulin was discovered in 1920, an intense research on diabetes has been
conducted during the last five decades and this is because of the market size. The
huge demand is creating the need for the development of new approaches. This
project involved the research aimed at better understanding and improvements in
performance of glucose biosensors.
In general, high surface area electrodes are desired as the high surface area
provides more active sites for electrochemical reactions, and hence higher kinetic
rate capability. Therefore, the determination of the active electrochemical surface
area of the electrode is very important. A study has been conducted to determine the
real electrochemical surface area of the Pelikan screen printed electrodes (SPEs)
and a method has been optimised and established by Pelikan for the evaluation of
their SPEs. Another very important issue that most of the current blood glucose
monitoring tests are facing is the haematocrit effect, since the haematocrit
differences observed in the blood samples can significantly affect glucose
measurements. Therefore a study has been conducted in order to observe the
absorption of the blood samples into the working electrode paste according to the
haematocrit level.
The second part of the study included the characterisation of the novel conjugated
polymer made of N-(N, N’ diethyldicarbamoyl ethyl amido ethyl) aniline (NDDEAEA),
the optimization of the conditions for the electrochemical polymerization, their
application in grafting and finally the development of NDDEAEA based glucose
biosensor. The new conducting polymer, acted as a matrix for the biosensor
fabrication in this study, possesses macroiniferter properties and is capable of
initiation free radical initiated addition polymerisation after formation of the
polyaniline (PANI) material while preserving or even enhancing some of the PANI’s
electrochemical properties. This material can potentially be used in the construction
of novel Pelikan electrodes with enhanced integration functionalities, e.g. grafting
non adhesive polymer coatings to assure that the poor performance in sensors as a
result of impact of blood components can be mitigated.
The final study included the development and optimisation of the reaction conditions
for grafting a hyperbranched polymer onto the surface of the multi walled carbon
nanotubes (MWCNT), using the A3 and B2 approach (described below). The aim of
this work was achieving further increase in the sensitivity of Pelikan sensors. |
en_UK |