Electroplating of Multiple Materials in Parallel Using Patterned Gels with Applications in Electrochemical Sensing

Electroplating of Multiple Materials in Parallel Using Patterned Gels with Applications in Electrochemical Sensing

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Electrodeposition is a versatile technique for the fabrication of read more electrodes in micro-electroanalytical devices.Conductive but low-cost materials, such as copper, can be coated with functional yet higher-cost materials such as gold or silver using electrodeposition to lower the overall cost while maintaining functionality.When the electrodeposition of multiple materials is required, current methods use a multistep process that deposits one material at a time, which requires a significant amount of time and a significant number of steps.

Additionally, they use a large volume of electrolytes suitable for coating large objects, which is wasteful and unnecessary for the prototyping or coating of microelectrodes with a small area.In this paper, a new method of electroplating is introduced in which we used gels to immobilize and pattern electroplating electrolytes on a substrate surface.Agarose, as an immobilizing medium, enables the immersion of the substrate in a common working electrolyte without cross-mixing different electrolytes.

We demonstrate the printing of jelly electrolytes by using spot-dispensing or microfluidic flow.Xurographically patterned films laminated on the substrate function as a mask and confine the printed gels to desired locations.After printing, the substrate is placed in a common working electrolyte container, and multimaterial patterns are produced through the application of an electrical current click here in a single step.