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Design and development of portable potentiostat for advanced research in

electrochemical biosensing

Conference Paper · September 2017

DOI: 10.1109/ICPCSI.2017.8392173

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 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

Design and Development of Portable

Potentiostat for Advanced Research in
Electrochemical Biosensing
Sarika Bukkawara, Nisha Sarwadea, M S Pansea, H. Muthurajanb
a
Dept of Electronics Engineering, VJTI Mumbai, India
Sarika_bukkawar@hotmail.com, nishasarvade@vjti.org.in,mspanse@vjti.org.in
b
National Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology,University of Mumbai,India
muthurajan@nano.mu.ac.in

Abstract--- Embedded system based, portable
potentiostat for Linear Sweep Voltammetry(LSV) is
successfully developed. The uniqueness of the system is
that it is developed by using off the shelf components for
high performance, high resolution and low cost three
electrode electrochemical biosensor. It is interfaced with
PC by USB. Most important parameters that need to set
in electrochemical analysis are scan rate, start potential,
end potential and step size of linear sweep voltage. In this
system, external 16-bit DAC and 24-bit ADC are
interfaced which gives the LSV resolution of 763nV and
can capture minimum sensor current of 125nA. This
kind of signal resolution is needed for detection of low
analyte concentration. Most importantly the system does
not need any external memory to store the captured
sensor data. An employment of cool term software aids
the real-time data capture from biosensor and save it in
.txt file format for further parameter estimation.
Keywords: Measurement Techniques; Biological
Sensor; Signal Detection and Parameter Estimation
1. INTRODUCTION
Potentiostats are most commonly used in
electrochemical analysis for development of chemical
and biological sensors. Many advanced
electrochemical sensors are developed and widely
used now-a-days due to their simplicity, portability,
low cost and rapid detection. Biosensors like glucose
[1] and cholesterol [2], chemical sensors which detect
harmful gases such as ammonia[3-5], benzene[6],
nitrogen dioxide released from vehicular pollution in
atmosphere and harmful components in water such as
lead and cadmium[7] are developed over a decade for
societal benefit. Few biosensors are also reported for
detection of DNA [8], Urea[9] and harmful
vapors[10].
Many low cost, low power portable potentiostats are
developed by using popular microcontrollers available
from different companies. All voltammetry techniques
such as linear, cyclic, square wave, anodic and
cathodic stripping etc. can be carried out by
potentiostats for electrochemical analysis. Selection of
microcontroller is done on the basis of resolution of
step voltage applied, resolution of current measured
from the sensor system, storage of data points and its
analysis. Many potentiostats have been developed and
miniaturized using system on chip integrated circuits.
Some of them are used for Lab level electrochemical
experiments [11]. Potentiostats for point of care
diagnosis [12,13], embedded system based
miniaturized electrochemical miniEC [14] are
developed and reported.
2. HARDWARE DESIGN
Fig 1 shows the block diagram of developed
potentiostat system for three electrode electrochemical
sensor. This system uses following key components:

978-1-5386-0814-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

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 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)

1) 24-bit Analog to Digital The system is designed for three electrode

Converter(ADS1220) electrochemical cell comprising of working
electrode[WE], reference electrode [RE] and counter
2) 16-bit Digital to Analog Converter (DAC
electrode [CE]. Output of DAC which is a linear sweep
8574)
voltage is applied to electrochemical cell and sensor
3) ATMEGA 328 Microcontroller unit (MCU) current due to the reaction of analyte with WE is
recorded from electrochemical cell. Cool term
4) Potentiostat circuit
software is used for capturing the real-time data from
5) Cool Term software for capturing real time sensor via serial port of PC. This data is saved in .txt
data format which can be exported to Microsoft Excel or
Origin for further data analysis and parameter
6) Three electrode electrochemical cell.
estimation.
24-bit ADC and 16-bit DAC are interfaced with MCU
3. POTENTIOSTAT
with Serial peripheral interface(SPI) and Inter-
Fig 2 shows the circuit diagram of potentiostat [15].
integrated circuit(I2C) communication protocol
respectively rather than using on-chip 10- bit ADC and
8 bit PWM/DAC. 24 -bit ADC and 16 bit DAC
provides a linear sweep voltage of resolution 763nV
and can measure minimum sensor current of 125nA.
On the other hand, on chip 10-bit ADC can measure
minimum current of 4.8mA and 8-bit DAC will have
a resolution of 19mV which is not sufficient for
developing advanced electrochemical sensors for low
concentration detection of analyte.
Fig 2: Circuit diagram of Potentiostat

Potentiostat is an electronic circuit that has to maintain

the constant voltage between WE and RE and change
in current between WE and CE is to be recorded due
to the reaction of analyte in solution at WE. Circuit
diagram of Potentiostat circuit comprises of four
important blocks such as control amplifier, Booster,
Current to voltage (I to V) converter and Voltage
follower. Voltage follower is introduced in feedback
so that RE is not loaded by current from DAC output.
Voltage follower’s output is used for continues
monitoring of voltage across WE vs RE. Working
Fig 1: Block diagram of designed Potentiostat system for
electrode feeds I to V converter whose output is
electrochemical analysis
proportional to the current. This I to V converter

2532
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)
allows WE to remain at virtual ground, which is an
essential condition for operation of the system.
Increased power has been achieved by inserting
Booster amplifier in the output loop, usually having
low gain, capable of delivering higher voltage or
higher currents or both than operational amplifier
itself.
4. SOFTWARE
Programming for interfacing external 16-bit DAC
8574, 24- bit ADS1120 with MCU is done in C
language.
Similarly setting start potential, end potential, scan
rate and step size of LSV is done in MCU
programming. In the developed system, external
memory storage unit for storing sensor data is not
required as Cool Term software captures the real-time
data coming on USB port of PC from electrochemical
cell and saves into .txt format.
Fig 3 shows the photograph of developed potentiostat
for electrochemical bio-sensing applications.
The size of this prototype model is ~14cm x14cm.
Fig 3: Photograph of developed potentiostat interfaced with 16-bit
DAC and 24- bit ADC
2533
5. SYSTEM CHARACTERIZATION
To assess the capabilities of the fabricated equipment
and to verify whether it is working as expected, system
characterization curve is plotted with 1 kΩ and 10 kΩ
resistors. These resistors are connected between the
WE and RE with CE and RE connected together.
These resistors signify electrolytic solution in
electrochemical cell. Linear sweep voltage is scanned
and current was recorded via USB port and cool term
software. The well-behaved and well-known response
of these electronic components when submitted to a
potential ramp makes it easy to evaluate the
performance of the equipment. In Fig 4 an expected
behavior is observed and the resistances are calculated
as being 1000 ± 2%, 10000 ± 2%, These values are in
good agreement when + - 10% tolerance resistors
used.
1K RESISTANCE
10 K RESISTANCE
0.005
0.004
CURRENT (A)
0.003
0.002
0.001
0.000
0 1 2 3 4 5
VOLTAGE (V)
Fig 4: System characterization curve for 1K and 10K resistors,
Linear fit for the obtained curves with R2 =0.999995, 0.999994 and
1/slope (i.e. Resistance) is 969.636 Ω and 9812.188 Ω for 1K and
10 kΩ respectively
6. CONCLUSION
Low cost, portable, real time sensor data capturing
ability and microcontroller based potentiostat is
developed for applications in design of low cost
 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI-2017)
electrochemical biosensor. For electrochemical
analysis, the cell consists of WE, RE, CE and analyte
solution whose concentration needs to be detected.
Linear sweep voltage is scanned and resultant current
due the reaction of analyte with WE are recorded.
Detection of the analyte in sensor system depends
mainly on four parameters, start potential, end
potential, scan rate and step size of linear sweep
voltage. These parameters are important as they decide
the reduction/ oxidation(Redox) reaction of analytes
with WE in electrochemical cell. In this system, rather
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