Additively Manufactured Electrodes with Graphene- Copper Nanostructures: Electrochemical Characterization and Sensing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising platform for fabricating cost-effective and customizable electrodes in electrochemical applications. How-ever, the limited conductivity of polymer-based feedstock materials poses a chal-lenge for their practical deployment. In this work, we report the development of composite electrodes prepared by adding graphene and hydrothermally synthe-sized copper nanostructures to solvated acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The mixture thus obtained is utilized for 3D printing application. The incorpora-tion of graphene provides conductive pathways, as well as copper nanostructures (Cu-NS) introduces additional electroactive sites, thereby enhancing electro-chemical performance of the electrodes. Structural and morphological analyses confirmed uniform distribution of the nanomaterials within ABS matrix. Electro-chemical characterization using cyclic voltammetry demonstrated improved elec-tron transfer kinetics. ABS-graphene-Cu-NS performed better in comparison to various combination of ABS with carbon, graphene and Cu-NS. The current work exhibited that introduction of graphene and copper nanostructures to ABS results in improving conductivity and electrochemical activity. The present work estab-lishes the feasibility of using additively manufactured graphene–copper compo-site electrodes as a low-cost and scalable platform for future electrochemical sensing applications.