Open-Source Potentiostat for Wireless Electrochemical Detection with Smartphones

TLDR

This paper presents the design and characterization of an open‑source universal wireless electrochemical detector (UWED). The UWED connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth Low Energy, using the phone’s interface to set experimental parameters, visualize results in real time, and serve as a proxy for data storage, processing, and transmission. The UWED reduces hardware size and cost, adapts to various analyses through software changes, and delivers potentiometry, chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and square wave voltammetry results comparable to commercial potentiostats, making it suitable for affordable diagnostics, sensors, and wearable devices.

Abstract

This paper describes the design and characterization of an open-source "universal wireless electrochemical detector" (UWED). This detector interfaces with a smartphone (or a tablet) using "Bluetooth Low Energy" protocol; the smartphone provides (i) a user interface for receiving the experimental parameters from the user and visualizing the result in real time, and (ii) a proxy for storing, processing, and transmitting the data and experimental protocols. This approach simplifies the design, and decreases both the size and the cost of the hardware; it also makes the UWED adaptable to different types of analyses by simple modification of the software. The UWED can perform the most common electroanalytical techniques of potentiometry, chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and square wave voltammetry, with results closely comparable to benchtop commercial potentiostats. Although the operating ranges of electrical current and voltage of the UWED (±1.5 V, ±180 μA) are more limited than most benchtop commercial potentiostats, its functional range is sufficient for most electrochemical analyses in aqueous solutions. Because the UWED is simple, small in size, assembled from inexpensive components, and completely wireless, it offers new opportunities for the development of affordable diagnostics, sensors, and wearable devices.