Shark-inspired MEMS chemical sensor with epithelium-like micropillar electrode array for lead detection

Inspired by morphological structure of ciliated receptor cells, we design, fabricate and characterize a miniaturized MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) chemical sensor with micropillar electrode array, which mimics the biological function of shark's olfactory sensor. To our best knowledge, this is the first time a shark olfactory inspired MEMS chemical sensor has been proposed. Electrochemical experiments with our bio-inspired chemical sensor show excellent redox repeatability and accuracy under wide range of scan rates. Measurement of lead ions yields undistorted, well-defined stripping peaks with good linearity. Limit of detection as low as 0.8 ppb is obtained, suggesting our sensor is capable of detecting very low lead concentration in water samples given that international guideline value is 10 ppb.