Electrochemically deposited metal nanoparticles for enhancing the performance of microfluidic MEMS in biochemical analysis

The fabrication and evaluation of the analytical performance of integrated microfluidic MEMS modified with electrochemically deposited metal nanoparticles are described in this paper. The microfluidic MEMS is a hydride system that comprise two layers, poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and glass, which in turn enclose a micro channels network and a set of 15 micro electrodes, respectively. The mechanism of electrokinetic phenomenon and electrochemical detection were applied for performing injection and separation, and sensing the components of a biochemical mixture, respectively. The technique of electrochemical deposition was employed for depositing nanoparticles of gold, palladium and platinum on the surface of integrated microelectrodes. The nanoparticles-modified micro electrodes were characterised electrochemically and using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Importantly, the nanoparticles-based decoupler has significantly enhanced the analytical performance of the microfluidic MEMS, where detection limits in the low nanomolar range were recorded for the targeted analytes.