Applications of thick film screen printing and ink jet printing for the manufacturing of single use, disposable biosensors

Thick film screen printing and ink jet printing are mature, cost-effective manufacturing processes in micro-electronic industries. However, the applications of these processes to the production of chemical and biological sensors remain limited. The potential for using these technologies in producing cost-effective chemical and biological sensors, particularly for single use, disposable sensors has not been fully explored. Nano particle metallic catalysts have unique properties in many electrochemical reactions. Thus, the incorporation of nanoparticle catalysts into the thick film printing processing in the manufacturing of electrochemical based chemical and biological sensors can be attractive in the advance of the single use, disposable biosensor. Thus, the combined thick film printing and nano metallic catalysts approach is used in the manufacturing of cost effective, single use, disposable biosensors. This platform technology will be based on the enzymatic reactions which will yield an electrochemically active product such as H₂O₂, NADH, and NAD⁺.