Scaling analysis of a universal electrode for molecular biosensors

Nanoscale and molecular manipulation techniques, such as concentration, are crucial for the success of an automated point-of-care diagnostic system. Here, we report the development of an electrokinetic concentrator for integrated bioanalytical systems. By combining different electrokinetic forces, the concentrator is capable of concentrating nanoscale particles in less than 1 min and increasing the concentration by 2 orders of magnitude. The concentrator used a universal electrode design developed for a versatile electrochemical sensor platform. We performed a scaling analysis to generalize and optimize the design of the universal electrode. The data collapse analysis showed that the concentration process follows a universal kinetics, and the time scaling factor (T) scales with the effective electric field (E) as T ∼ E
^0.48±0.15
while the intensity scaling factor (I) increases with the effective electric field (E) as I∼E
^0.93±0.12
.