MiniStat: Development and Evaluation of a Mini-Potentiostat for Electrochemical Measurements

Abstract

As high-precision instrumentation is becoming more portable and cost-effective, an opportunity has arisen to move the electrochemical analysis techniques out of the laboratory and into novel application environments. The increased demand in electrochemical systems driven by a new age of technology sees the need for devices that are adaptive to the following: 1) portable, allowing for handheld and user-friendly field-based testing; 2) embeddable, allowing for long-term in situ assays; and 3) low cost, allowing for large-scale, parallel simultaneous experiments. To address these needs, we propose a potentiostat platform which allows for a variety of electrochemical assays to be performed on a miniaturized, battery-powered, low-cost device. This device incorporates the three key components of a potentiostat: output stage, input stage, and control/communications, into a single 27 mm $\times20$ mm footprint. The device is evaluated through several bench tests which confirmed the accuracy of both the precision voltage output and current measurement input of the device. Subsequently, three electrochemical experiments were conducted to evaluate the real-world performance and application of the device. These experiments allowed for the confirmation of the devices capability to accurately perform chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and anodic stripping square wave voltammetry. These experiments clearly indicated that the device operates as an analytically useful potentiostat, outputting accurate voltages, and precisely measuring the resulting current.