Improving electrochemical properties of printed graphene electrodes by application of intense pulsed light

This innovation includes photohermal treatment of inkjet printed graphene electrodes by intense pulsed light (IPL). The IPL treatment lasts only 3 ms, yet these electrodes outperform thermally treated  inkjet printed electrodes and commercial screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPE) in terms of electrochemical and electroanalytical performance. IPL processing causes the formation of craters on the electrode surface, which increases the electroactive surface area compared to conventional time- and energy-consuming thermal treatment. The IPL treated printed electrodes thus exhibit increased surface roughness, current density and heterogeneous electron transfer rate constant of hexacyanoferrate (II/III). This is beneficial for electroanalytical determination of different chemical substances, such as environmental pollutants, as demonstrated by determination of the antibiotic azithromycin with high sensitivity.