2.3. Screen-printed electrodes preparation
Hand-made screen-printed electrodes were used in the determination
of Sb(III). For the construction of the screen-printed
electrodes successive layers of different inks were printed
onto a PVC strip substrate (30mm×10 mm, 0.5mm thick)
using four different screens with appropriate stencils to transfer
the required design (Fig. 1). The printing procedure was as
follows:
1) Firstly, three parallel conducting base-patterns were screenprinted
on the PVC strip substrate with commercial silver
ink, giving them an effective conductive surface, and they
were then cured for 15 min at 90 ◦C. The base-pattern at the
left was used as the counter electrode.
2) A silver/silver chloride reference electrode was screenprinted
using silver/silver chloride ink on the silver
base-pattern at the right, as can be seen in Fig. 1, and then
cured for 15 min at 90 ◦C.
3) The working electrode was formed by screen printing a
graphite layer over the silver base-pattern at the centre using
commercial graphite ink and was then cured for 15 min at
90 ◦C.
4) An insulator layer was finally printed over all of the sensor
strip except for the three electrode surfaces and the electrical