High-Tech Glucose Sensor Being Developed For Diabetics

Filed in archive Research on January 11, 2007

When it comes to your health, you can never have too much correct information. When it comes to monitoring blood sugar, accuracy is absolutely essential. Which is why the development of a high-tech glucose sensor
is such good news.

"The good electrochemical properties for both carbon nanotubes and platinum nanoparticles have been well documented" Dr. Jining Xie explains to Nanowerk. "However, there are few reports on combining both. The originality of our work is to in-situ prepare platinum decorated carbon nanotubes, not simple mixing them, as the supportive materials for glucose sensing electrodes."
The researchers used platinum decorated multi-walled CNTs to prepare an enzyme-based mediated glucose sensor. Compared with the bare MWNT-based sensor, the Pt/MWNT paste-based glucose sensor exhibits a substantially higher sensitivity.

Xie, a research scientist in charge of the Nanomaterials and Carbon Nanotube Laboratory at the University of Arkansas' High Density Electronics Center, points out that an obvious potential application of his team's work is for fast, sensitive and considerably reliable glucose sensing. Such precise detection of glucose level and continuous monitoring its fluctuation throughout the day could be a significant improvement of diabetes control and its management.