Electrochemical characterisation of novel screen-printed carbon paste electrodes for voltammetric measurements

This work is focused on the homemade screen-printed carbon paste electrode containing basically graphite powder (or glassy carbon powder), poly(vinylbchloride) (PVC) and paraffin oil. It compares the electrochemical properties of conventional carbon-based electrodes and prepared screen-printed carbon paste electrodes towards [Fe(CN)6]3-/[Fe(CN)6]4- and quinone/hydroquinone redox couples. Significant attention is paid to the development of the corresponding carbon inks, printing and the surface characterisation of the resulting electrodes by the scanning electron microscopy. An optimization consisted of the selection of the organic solvent, the optimal content of the used polymer with the chosen paste binder, appropriate isolation of electric contact, etc. Very similar properties of the prepared screen-printed electrodes, containing only corresponding carbon powder and 3 % PVC, with their conventional carbon paste electrode and glassy carbon-based electrodes, were observed during their characterisation. Screen-printed electrodes, with the pasting liquid usually provided satisfactory analytical data. Moreover, they can be used in the flow injection analysis and could undoubtedly replace the carbon paste grooved electrodes. It can be assumed that certain progress in the development of electrode materials was achieved by this research.