# Self-Adhesive Mask and Homemade Carbon Ink: Turning Unusable Screen-Printed Electrodes into a New Voltammetric Sensor

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a sustainable method to reuse disposable carbon electrodes, extending their life and enabling accurate chemical detection.

## Contribution

A novel stencil-printing approach to recover and reuse unusable screen-printed carbon electrodes.

## Key findings

- Recovered electrodes (Re-SPCEs) showed similar morphology and catalytic ability to new SPCEs.
- Dopamine and tryptophan were successfully detected with low limits of detection in real samples.
- The method effectively extends the life cycle of disposable SPCEs.

## Abstract

Screen-printed carbon
electrodes (SPCEs) are widely employed in
sensing due to their low cost, especially the model DRP-110. However,
their disposable nature limits their long-term applications. In this
work, we present a sustainable methodology for recovering the electrode
model DRP-110-U75. Unusable SPCEs were made usable again after employing
a stencil-printing approach. After recuperating the electrodes (Re-SPCE),
characterization experiments upon the Re-SPCEs have indicated similar
morphological aspects and catalytic ability when compared to as-purchased
SPCEs. As a proof of concept, voltammetric analysis of dopamine (DOP)
in artificial urine and tryptophan (TRP) in supplement capsules was
successfully employed, exhibiting limits of detection of 2.15 and
0.2 μmol L–1 for DOP and TRP, respectively.
These results confirm that the proposed method can extend the life
cycle of SPCEs.