Design and implementation of low-cost portable potentiostat based on WeChat

Abstract

The potentiostat is critical in the development of electrochemical systems; however, its cumbersome detection and high cost considerably limit its large-scale application. To provide an affordable alternative to developing countries and resource-constrained areas, this study designs an electrochemical detection system based on smartphones, which uses Bluetooth Low Energy to convert open-source potentiostat data based on PSoC-5LP. The WeChat application on the smartphone provides an interface for entering experimental parameters and visualizing the results in real time. The smartphone-based electrochemical detection system has a simple design and reduces the size (10×3×0.3 cm3) and the cost of the hardware ($ 18). The system performs the most commonly used cyclic voltammetry for electrochemical detection, with results that are comparable to those obtained using a commercial potentiostat and an error rate of 1.3 %. In the classical teaching experiment of electrochemical determination of ascorbic acid in orange juice samples, the measured value of the system is 0.367±0.012 mg/mL, compared with the standard reference value of 0.37 mg/mL, which is obviously a convincing value. Therefore, this system is a low-cost, reliable alternative to a potentiostat for research, education or product integration development.