Issue 1, 2012
From the journal:

Lab on a Chip

An electrochemical gas sensor based on paper supported room temperature ionic liquids

Nicolò Dossi,a   Rosanna Toniolo,*a   Andrea Pizzariello,a   Emanuel Carrilho,bc   Evandro Piccin,d   Simone Battistone  and  Gino Bontempellia  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Food Science, University of Udine, via Cotonificio 108, Udine, Italy
E-mail: rosanna.toniolo@uniud.it
Fax: +39 0432-558803
Tel: +39 0432-558885

b Institute of Chemistry at São Carlos, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, SP, Brazil

c National Institute of Bioanalytical Science and Technology, Campinas, SP, Brazil

d Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

e CNR Institute for Energetics and Interphases, Corso Stati Uniti 4, Padova, Italy

Abstract

A sensitive and fast-responding membrane-free amperometric gas sensor is described, consisting of a small filter paper foil soaked with a room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL), upon which three electrodes are screen printed with carbon ink, using a suitable mask. It takes advantage of the high electrical conductivity and negligible vapour pressure of RTILs as well as their easy immobilization into a porous and inexpensive supporting material such as paper. Moreover, thanks to a careful control of the preparation procedure, a very close contact between the RTIL and electrode material can be achieved so as to allow gaseous analytes to undergo charge transfer just as soon as they reach the three-phase sites where the electrode material, paper supported RTIL and gas phase meet. Thus, the adverse effect on recorded currents of slow steps such as analyte diffusion and dissolution in a solvent is avoided. To evaluate the performance of this device, it was used as a wall-jet amperometric detector for flow injection analysis of 1-butanethiol vapours, adopted as the model gaseous analyte, present in headspace samples in equilibrium with aqueous solutions at controlled concentrations. With this purpose, the RTIL soaked paper electrochemical detector (RTIL-PED) was assembled by using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide as the wicking RTIL and printing the working electrode with carbon ink doped with cobalt(II) phthalocyanine, to profit from its ability to electrocatalyze thiol oxidation. The results obtained were quite satisfactory (detection limit: 0.5 μM; dynamic range: 2–200 μM, both referring to solution concentrations; correlation coefficient: 0.998; repeatability: ±7% RSD; long-term stability: 9%), thus suggesting the possible use of this device for manifold applications.

Graphical abstract: An electrochemical gas sensor based on paper supported room temperature ionic liquids

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C1LC20663J
Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Jul 2011
Accepted
11 Oct 2011
First published
10 Nov 2011

Lab Chip, 2012,12, 153-158

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An electrochemical gas sensor based on paper supported room temperature ionic liquids

N. Dossi, R. Toniolo, A. Pizzariello, E. Carrilho, E. Piccin, S. Battiston and G. Bontempelli, Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 153 DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20663J

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