Iranian researchers designed a biosensor to detect very small amount of glucose in urine sample.
In addition to high detection power, the sensor has high repeatability, is quick and can be produced through a simple and cost-efficient method.
The importance of diabetes disease has increased the necessity of exact measurement of glucose level in clinical diagnoses. The common method to detect glucose is to measure the amount of glucose in blood samples of patients, which is costly as well as creation of pain during the sampling. The aim of the research was to produce a simple biosensor with appropriate repeatability for the measurement of glucose in humans, and consequently, to diagnose diabetes.
The importance of the research is the ability of the biosensor in the measurement of very small amount of glucose in urine sample. The sensor has been produced through a cost-efficient method and is painless, specially for kids in comparison with the usual method that is based on taking blood samples.
In this research, a combination of graphene-gold nanoparticles was designed without the use of polymeric materials to separate graphene nanosheets and reduce the probability of aggregation which results in the high sensitivity of the sensor. In similar projects, ionic and polymeric bonding agents had been used. The use of polymeric materials results in the reduction in response speed of the sensor and its sensitivity.
The lowest concentration of glucose this sensor is able to detect is 0.06 micromolar and uncertainty in the results is less than 6%.
Results of the research have been published in Materials Science and Engineering C, vol. 49, issue 1, 2015, pp. 297-304.