Laser Scribing Turns Plastic Waste into a Biosensor via the Restructuration of Nanocarbon Composites for Noninvasive Dopamine Detection

• Published in: Biosensors (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 8; p. 810
• Main Authors: Suriyaprakash, Jagadeesh, Huang, Yang, Hu, Zhifei, Wang, Hao, Zhan, Yiyu, Zhou, Yangtao, Thangavelu, Indumathi, Wu, Lijun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.08.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; Analysis; biosensor; Biosensors; carbon materials; Chemical composition; Communication; Composite materials; Detectors; direct laser writing; Dopamine; electrochemical; Electrodes; flexible sensor; Graphene; Irradiation; Lasers; Nanocomposites; Plastic debris; Plastic scrap; Polyethylene terephthalate; Properties; Sensors; Spectrum analysis; Surface chemistry; China
• ISSN: 2079-6374; 2079-6374
• DOI: 10.3390/bios13080810

The development of affordable and compact noninvasive point-of-care (POC) dopamine biosensors for the next generation is currently a major and challenging problem. In this context, a highly sensitive, selective, and low-cost sensing probe is developed by a simple one-step laser-scribing process of plastic waste. A flexible POC device is developed as a prototype and shows a highly specific response to dopamine in the real sample (urine) as low as 100 pmol/L in a broad linear range of 10−10–10−4 mol/L. The 3D topological feature, carrier kinetics, and surface chemistry are found to improve with the formation of high-density metal-embedded graphene-foam composite driven by laser irradiation on the plastic-waste surface. The development of various kinds of flexible and tunable biosensors by plastic waste is now possible thanks to the success of this simple, but effective, laser-scribing technique, which is capable of modifying the matrix’s electronic and chemical composition.