Two-Dimensional Non-Carbon Materials-Based Electrochemical Printed Sensors: An Updated Review

Abstract

Recently, there has been increasing interest in electrochemical printed sensors for a wide range of applications such as biomedical, pharmaceutical, food safety, and environmental fields. A major challenge is to obtain selective, sensitive, and reliable sensing platforms that can meet the stringent performance requirements of these application areas. Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials advances have accelerated the performance of electrochemical sensors towards more practical approaches. This review discusses the recent development of electrochemical printed sensors, with emphasis on the integration of non-carbon 2D materials as sensing platforms. A brief introduction to printed electrochemical sensors and electrochemical technique analysis are presented in the first section of this review. Subsequently, sensor surface functionalization and modification techniques including drop-casting, electrodeposition, and printing of functional ink are discussed. In the next section, we review recent insights into novel fabrication methodologies, electrochemical techniques, and sensors' performances of the most used transition metal dichalcogenides materials (such as MoS₂, MoSe₂, and WS₂), MXenes, and hexagonal boron-nitride (hBN). Finally, the challenges that are faced by electrochemical printed sensors are highlighted in the conclusion. This review is not only useful to provide insights for researchers that are currently working in the related area, but also instructive to the ones new to this field.

Keywords: 2D materials; MXenes; TMDCs; electrochemical; hexagonal boron-nitride; non-carbon; screen printed electrode; sensors.

Figure 1

Printed sensor fabrication techniques (a) Screen-printing. Reproduced with permission from [45]. Copyright 2018 Plos ONE. (b) Ink-jet printing. Reproduced with permission from [46]. Copyright 2018 IOP Publishing All rights reserved. (c) Aerosol jet printing and its zoomed-in schematic of aerosol jet deposition. Reprinted (adapted) with permission from [47]. Copyright 2019 American Chemical Society.

Figure 3

Surface modification or functionalization techniques of printed electrochemical sensors with nanomaterials. (a) Drop-casting technique. Reproduced/Adapted from Ref. [89] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry. (b) Ink-mixing and printing technique. Reprinted with permission from [90]. Copyright 2014 Springer Nature. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. (c) Electrodeposition technique. Reprinted with permission from [91]. Copyright 2019 Springer Nature. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Figure 2

(a) A scheme of construction for a printed electrochemical sensor. The printed electrochemical sensors consist of three electrode systems, the working electrode, the counter electrode, and the reference electrode. (b) Printed sensor electrodes on various types of substrates, (b-i) printed electrochemical pH sensor on a flexible thin film. Reproduced/Adapted from Ref. [55] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry, (b-ii) sensor arrays printed on the skin epidermis. Reproduced/Adapted from Ref. [56] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry, (b-iii) printed sensors on textile and its zoomed-in image. Reproduced/Adapted from Ref. [57] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry, and (b-iv) printed chemical sensor on tattoo transfer paper. Reprinted with permission from [58]. Copyright 2018 Elsevier.

Figure 4

(a) General structure of TMDC, where the metal atom (purple) is sandwiched between two chalcogenides atoms (yellow). Reprinted with permission from [100]. Copyright 2021 Springer Nature. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. (b) There are more than 40 combinations of transition metal and chalcogen atoms that can form stable TMDC materials. The transition metals and the three chalcogens elements are highlighted in the periodic table.

Figure 5

(a) FESEM image of MoS₂ nanosheets synthesized in Tajik et al.’s laboratory. (b) Differential pulse voltammetry of simultaneous detection of INZ and AC on MoS₂-NSs/SPE. Inset (A): The anodic peak current plot vs. AC concentration. Inset (B): The anodic peak current plot vs. INZ concentration. Reprinted with permission from [114]. Copyright 2022 MDPI. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Figure 6

(a) From left to right, fabrication steps of MoS₂/SPGE sensor for chikungunya virus. Stepwise shows fabrication of SPGE with MoS2 nanosheets, immobilization of probe DNA and target DNA. The next illustration shows strong affinity interaction of Au and S (in MoS₂), Van der Waals interaction between probe DNA and the MoS₂ surface, principle for the detection of target DNA via redox hybridization indicator, i.e., methylene blue. (b) Comparison of cyclic voltammetry graph of bare SPE, MoS₂/SPE, Target/MoS₂/SPE, and Probe/MoS₂/SPE. (c) Nyquist Plot verifying hybridization of the different concentration of the complementary target DNA at PDNA/MoS₂NSs/SPGE. Reprinted with permission from [133]. Copyright 2018 Springer Nature. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Figure 7

(a) A schematic of the fabrication of MWCNTs/MoS2(-HRP)-dAb nanocarriers and (b) their application on screen-printed dual carbon electrodes (SPdECs) for the determination of BAFF and APRIL biomarkers. Reprinted with permission from [135]. Copyright 2022 Springer Nature. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Figure 8

(a) Fabrication of screen-printed sensor on paper-based substrate is also well-known as paper-based analytical device (ePAD) and (b-i) Nyquist plot of bare ePAD, ePAD/WS₂NS, after immobilization with aptamer and after immobilization with bacteria, (b-ii) Nyquist plot of detection bacteria at different concentration ranging from 20 μM to 100 μM. Reprinted with permission from [161]. Copyright 2021 MDPI. Authors licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Figure 9

An illustration of electrocatalytic reaction mechanism of toxic roxarsone on the WS₂-based SPE electrode sensor. Reprinted with permission from [167]. Copyright 2019 Elsevier.

Figure 10

Periodic table presenting elements that are used in MXenes’ composition. At the bottom are illustrations of four typical MXene structures. Reprinted (adapted) with permission from [172]. Copyright 2021 American Chemical Society.

Figure 11

Structure of a microfluidic system with MXenes/MB/urea SPE for whole blood detection. Reprinted with permission from reference [178]. Copyright 2019 John Wiley and Sons.

Figure 12

Illustration of the atomic structure of hexagonal boron-nitride (a) in a bulk structure, (b) in a monolayer structure. Reprinted from [179], with the permission of AIP Publishing.