Stable Full-Inkjet-Printed Solid-State Ag/AgCl Reference Electrode

Abstract

With a growing demand for the availability of inexpensive, simple, and rapid prototyped devices, the prospect of miniaturization of the reference electrodes using printing techniques becomes promising. A stable and reusable full-inkjet-printed solid-state reference electrode (IPRE) was developed. The reference electrode was fully produced by consecutive inkjet printing of several layers. Ag ink was printed and chlorinated by NaClO printing, forming a Ag/AgCl pseudoreference electrode. Then a surface protection by printing a Cl^--saturated polyvinyl butyral membrane finally gave a reference electrode that demonstrated an outstanding performance comparable to commercial ones. This full inkjet printing fabrication strategy will improve the viability of producing low-cost miniaturized reference electrodes with interest in many electrochemical sensor-dependent areas.