Complex engineering Problem: Design and simulate

a circuit for a 3-electrode Potentiostat system for

electrochemical sensing devices’ I-V
characterization.
Zain Ul Islam Siddiqui Zunaira Faheem
Faculty of Electrical Engineering(Electronics) Faculty of Electrical Engineering(Electronics)
Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering sciences and
Technology Technology
u2018516@giki.edu.pk u2018525@giki.edu.pk

Abstract – Potentiostats are used to measure quantity
of a specific compound in a solution. They are readily
used in glucometers and other such devices.
Keywords—potentiostat, glucometer
I. INTRODUCTION
Knowing the importance of sensing percentage of
different chemicals in solutions, the purpose of this
problem is to design the instrumentation to convert
the measured quantity of a substance to a
comprehendible value for microcontroller. This
quantity is measured through oxidation reduction
reactions and then building up the instrumentation to
measure it.
III. EASE OF USE
A. User Friendly
After sensing the compound and measuring
its quantity it can then be converted into voltage
signal which is identifiable by electronic devices
and thus it can be detected and the quantity can
be expressed through a user friendly manner.
IV. COMPONENTS
All the components used for the project design and
simulation is listed in Table I.
Resistor 9
Capacitor 2
3 phase ac supply 1
Voltage and Current probes 4
V. WORKING PRINCIPLE
A. Circuit design
The circuit is designed based on principles of digital
and analogue signal conditioning. The purpose of this
circuit is to measure voltage and predict the level of a
specific compound present in the solution. But lack of
knowledge about the compound being measured
makes us unlikely to provide reference voltage for that
particular compound. Thus a DC Sweep is given and
its peak in the output graph signifies which compound
is measured by the potentiostat. First an analogue
signal of 0 to 4 Volts is generated through DC Sweep
in one case and a function generator in second case.
(picture of dc sweep input)
(picture of function generator input)
Afterwards this Voltage is converted to -10 to 10V
using instrumentation OpAmp. This voltage is
provided as the reference to the potentiostat which will
give its peak for the specific quantity it measures.

TABLE I. COMPONENTS USED IN CIRCUIT DESIGN

Components Quantity
Operational Amplifier 1
DC Sweep Graph 1

Function Generator 1
Oscilloscope 1
 Vout=Vin+10
Eq. 2

VI. CIRCUIT DESIGN:

Fig. Voltage conversion from 0-4 to -10-10 V

Vout=5(Vin−2)
Eq. 1 Fig. Circuit design for fixed resistor

After leaving the potentiostat the voltage level is

dropped to -1 to 1V.

Fig. Voltage conversion from -10-10 to 1- -1 V

This output from potentiostat is then to be read

Fig. Circuit design for fixed capacitor
by a microcontroller to build up a relationship
between quantity of substance and its voltage.
For this purpose, it is converted to ADC
compatible voltage value that is 0 to 5V. VII. SIMULATION

The simulation is done using MULTISIM software.

Choosing Mutism helped us use its feature of DC Sweep to
get the graph for dc voltages provide to R and function
generator to get voltage output at capacitor.

For fixed Resistance (10K ohm):

Fig. Voltage conversion from 1- -1 to 0 - 5


Fig. 1 V I characteristic graph with fixed
For fixed Capacitance (1 microF):
Fig. 4 V I characteristic graph with fixed C
VIII. RESULTS:
After simulations are done we observe an Ohmic linear
graph in case of Fixed resistor and a closed loop in case of
fixed capacitance. The closed loop of capacitor signifies
the charging and discharging of capacitor. The voltage of
the unknown compound measured occurs at the peak of
this loop. The Y-axis shows the level of compound present
whereas the X-axis makes us identify the specie being
measured by the voltage it produced.