Towards controlled and simple design of non-enzymatic amperometric sensor for glycerol determination in yeast fermentation medium

Abstract

Glycerol is a widely used signaling bioanalyte in biotechnology. Glycerol can serve as a substrate or product of many metabolic processes in cells. Therefore, quantifcation of glycerol in fermentation samples with inexpensive, reliable, and rapid sensing systems is of great importance. In this work, an amperometric assay based on one-step designed electroplated functional Pd layers with controlled design was proposed for a rapid and selective measurement of glycerol in yeast fermentation medium. A novel assay utilizing electroplated Pd-sensing layers allows the quantifcation of glycerol in yeast fermentation medium in the presence of interfering species with RSD below 3% and recoveries ranged from 99 to 103%. The assay requires minimal sample preparation, viz. adjusting of sample pH to 12. The time taken to complete the electrochemical analysis was 3 min. Remarkably, during investigations, it was revealed that sensitivity and selectivity of glycerol determination on Pd sensors were signifcantly afected by its adsorption and did not depend on the surface structure of sensing layers. This study is expected to contribute to both fundamental and practical research felds related to a preliminary choice of functional sensing layers for specifc biotechnology and life science applications in the future.