Improving the signal-to-noise ratio of an ECL-based sensor using ad hoc carbon nanotube electrodes

In this paper, we demonstrate that mechanically modified cylinder-shaped carbon nanotube (CNT) working electrodes (WEs), combined with an averaging processing algorithm, can increase electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) limit of detection by more than one order of magnitude, compared to gold electrodes. With CNT WEs, we obtained a stable light emission that lasts for hundreds of voltammetric cycles. This stability was further exploited to increase the detection limit with a simple algorithm, based on mean calculation. Ad hoc fabricated sensors are characterized with a full-custom potentiostat testbed and software platform, using tris(2,2-bipyridyl)ruthenium (II) as ECL labels. Our measurement results show that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improves by a factor of larger than 20 compared to standard gold WEs to reach a detection limit up to 40 pg μl−1.