Different approaches for fabrication of low-cost electrochemical sensors

Electrochemistry combined with economical and sustainable platforms (such as paper) provides portable, affordable, robust, and user-friendly devices. In general, techniques such as photolithography and sputtering are excellent alternatives for producing these platforms. However, due to the requirement of expensive and sophisticated instrumentation as well as cleanroom facilities, these techniques have limited access. Thus, the search for easy to use and produce approaches have been reported, employing consumables, including adhesives, carbon ink, graphite, pencil, office paper, paperboard, among others. In this sense, in this mini-review, we discuss various strategies explored to fabricate low-cost electrochemical sensors, including its main applications. Different manufacturing methods, such as screen and stencil printing, laser-scribing, and pencil drawing, will be discussed here, emphasizing the performance of the obtained devices, in addition to their advantages and disadvantages.