Reliable Remote-Monitoring Electrochemical Potentiostat for Glucose Measurements

Electrochemical methods have been widely used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which require accurate concentration measurements, chemical reaction detections and analyses. The electrochemical potentiostat, the core element in electrochemical instruments, have been discussed as a hot topic addressing the difficulty of applying high-precision constant voltage and picoampere current measurements. Meanwhile, reliable potentiostats are in demand for complicated industrial environments with noises as well as requirements of remotemonitors. This paper describes a potentiostat for industrial glucose measurement that is not only accurate but also fault tolerant to guarantee high reliability in industrial environments. The instrument uses standard industrial communication protocols, profibus, and a 4-20 mA current loop, for remote control and monitoring. Experimental results show that this design has 0.01% accuracy with 1 mV resolution for voltage applications and 0.01% accuracy with 1 pA resolution for current measurements. The design is also shown to be highly reliable in noisy environments.