An Electrochemical o-Phthalaldehyde Sensor Using a Modified Disposable Screen-Printed Electrode with Polyacrylate Hydrogel for Concentration Verification of Clinical Disinfectant

Abstract

The study proposes an o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) sensor for rapid and reliable detection of OPA in healthcare disinfection practices, based on a hydrogel-modified screen-printed carbon electrode strip. The hydrogel film, which contains glycine and N-acetylcysteine, reacts with OPA to produce a reductive isoindole derivative. The derivative is then oxidized for OPA determination using cyclic voltammetry. The proposed sensor achieves an optimal detection time of 20–30 s and requires only a small analyte volume of 5 µL. It exhibits good precision (10%) and sensitivity (3.3 μA/cm2 mM) in a phosphate-buffered solution (pH 7.6), with excellent linearity (R2 > 0.97) and precision (<3%) in the detection range (0.2–0.6%) required for clinical OPA solutions. Moreover, the sensor demonstrates good concentration verification of Cidex-OPA disinfection in healthcare institutes, with high sensitivity (18.28 μA/cm2 mM) and precision around the minimum effective concentration (0.3%). Overall, the proposed sensor offers a promising and practical solution for accurate and reliable OPA detection in clinical disinfection practices.