A novel approach based on ferricyanide-mediator immobilized in an ion-exchangeable biosensing film for the determination of biochemical oxygen demand

A novel biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) sensing method employing a ferricyanide (FC) mediator immobilized in an ion-exchangeable polysiloxane was developed. The ion-exchangeable polysiloxane containing alkylammonium groups (PAPS-Cl) was synthesized by sol-gel reaction of 3-(aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMOS) catalyzed by hydrochloric acid. FC was combined in PAPS-Cl via ion-association and the product was labeled as PAPS-FC, which was employed for a modified glassy carbon electrode. The apparent diffusion coefficient (D_app) of FC on the modified glassy carbon electrode was 9.8 × 10⁻¹¹ cm² s⁻¹. In a three-electrode system, a linear relationship between the anodic current responses and glucose/glutamate (GGA) concentration was obtained up to 40 mg O₂ L⁻¹ (r = 0.994) when the reaction mixture was incubated for 30 min. Single sensor and piece-to-piece reproducibility were less than 3.8 and 7.7%, respectively. The effects of dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature and co-existing substances on the BOD responses were studied. The sensor responses to nine pure organic substances were compared with the conventional BOD₅ method and other biosensor methods. Detection results of seawater samples were compared with those obtained from the BOD₅ method and showed a good correlation (r = 0.988).