A portable electrochemical immunosensor for rapid detection of trace aflatoxin B1 in rice

Abstract

To explore the possibility of achieving a rapid and in situ detection of aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁), a portable biosensing instrument consisting of an impedance detector and a 3D-printed USB-compatible sensor chip was developed. In this study, we proposed an electrochemical biosensor based on screen-printed interdigitated microelectrodes (SPIMs) and a portable detector to achieve low-cost, highly selective and sensitive detection of AFB₁ in rice. Under optimized conditions, the immunosensor provided a detection limit of 5 ng mL⁻¹, which was below the allowable concentration. The total detection time including incubation was less than 1 h. The results obtained from this developed portable detection system were comparable to those from a commercial electrochemical station in the laboratory. Hence, the portable detector offers new tools for detection of a wide variety of analytes in clinical and environmental samples.