Mario Víctor Vázquez

The possibility of using an electrochemical biosensor, using screen-printed electrodes modified with a carbonaceous material and a commercial kit for the determination of glucose, to monitor an ethanolic fermentation was analyzed. The determination is based on the electrochemical oxidation reaction of NADH that occurs at a potential where the components of the kit do not generate a current signal, even in the presence of the fermentation medium. The electrochemical system was used to analyze the variation of glucose concentration during a laboratory-scale fermentation. The results were contrasted with the variation of standard characterization parameters such as pH, total soluble solids (TSS), the viability of the yeast, and concentration of ethanol produced. Of these values, the total soluble solids should be related to the concentration of glucose obtained by the electrochemical sensor, however, this last measure is more specific for sugar since the TSS refers to all soluble solids. The obtained results allow us to verify the usefulness of the electrochemical method for real-time monitoring of a fermentation.

Different carbon-based materials have been compared for the development of NADH sensors: glassy carbon electrodes (GCE), multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), and carbon black (CB). The GCE and MWCNT has been subjected to oxidative pretreatment to study the influence of oxidative groups for NADH oxidation. The materials had been characterized by FT-IR to identify the surface composition. The response of bare (GC) and GC/modified electrodes toward potassium ferricyanide have been employed to obtain information about the electroactive area and electron transfer rate. Studies of NAD⁺/NADH redox behavior showed that MWCNT and GCE exhibit high degree of passivation while CB shows no fouling effects. Catalytic effect of surface-oxygenated groups was also proved for GCE and MWCNT, and both, O-GCE and O-MWCNT, exhibited a lower oxidation overpotential compared to the respective untreated materials. Chronoamperometric quantification showed a linear dependence between 2–18 μmol·L⁻¹ and a detection limits of 6.2 μmol·L⁻¹ (GCE), 5.4 μmol·L⁻¹ (O-GCE), 3.2 μmol·L⁻¹ (GCE/CB), 9.6 μmol·L⁻¹ (GCE/MWCNT), and 4.9 μmol·L⁻¹ (GCE/O-MWCNT) were obtained. The analytical performances suggest that a careful choice of the material for NADH sensing is necessary depending on the sensor application.