Finalist EPFL doctorate Award 2016 – Irene Taurino
© 2016 Irene Taurino
Special distinction from the selection committee to Irene Taurino for her thesis "Carbon and Platinum Nanostructured Electrodes on Miniaturized Devices for Biomedical Diagnostics". Thesis n°6704 (2015). Thesis directors: Prof. G. De Micheli, Dr S. Carrara.
Metabolite (e.g., glucose, lactate) and ion (e.g., potassium) monitoring in human fluids is of significant importance in medicine. Instrumentation designed for a timely multi-sensing should be able to take several measurements from small volume samples. Consequently, the development of a tiny device is a crucial requirement. Electrochemical miniaturized devices are particularly advantageous because of the inexpensive and reproducible fabrication procedures and the simple analytical measurements.
A continuing challenge in their fabrication is the detection of metabolites and ions in the physio-pathological concentration range. Modifying electrodes with nanostructures can solve this issue as due to their high electrocatalytic activity and large surface-to-volume ratio. Tailored nanostructuration methods are extremely important to boost the sensor sensitivity, selectivity and stability over time. To this end, in this research work, novel protocols to modify electrodes with carbon and metal nanostructures have been developed without the use of binders that can mask the nanomaterial promising properties and can compromise the time-stability of the nanostructures in aqueous environments. Carbon nanomaterials have been selectively deposited on electrodes by CVD and nanoporous metal layers by template-free electrodeposition processes.
Both nanostructuration approaches generated electrodes with significantly enhanced detection performance as compared to the bare counterparts for sensing metabolites and ions.
