A Non-Enzymatic Electrochemical Uric Acid Sensor Based on a Screen-Printed Electrode Modified with a Photopolymerized Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Membrane

Abstract

A non-enzymatic sensor for uric acid detection based on an electro-transducer has been developed using screen-printed electrode-modified molecularly imprinted polymer (SPE-MIPs). The MIPs have been synthesized from uric acid (template), methacrylic acid/MAA (monomer), and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate/EGDMA (crosslinker) by photopolymerization procedure. The differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) method was used to test the uric acid sensor response. The linear response range of the uric acid electrochemical sensor was obtained from 0.595 to 356.905 μmoll −1 (R 2  = 0.99) by DPV with a detection limit of 0.452 μmoll −1 at pH 7.0. In addition, the sensor has a sensitivity of −0.0188 μA/μmoll −1 . The uric acid extraction time is 30 min, while the uric acid re-extraction time is 14 min. The voltammetric uric acid sensor response showed good reproducibility with a promising relative standard deviation acquired at 5.643% ( n  = 9). The ultra-high sensitivity performance of the developed uric acid sensor based on MAA and EGDMA molecularly imprinted polymer towards determining uric acid concentrations at low levels has demonstrated superior performance across previously reported electrochemical uric acid sensors based on various MIPs.