Zinc oxide nanoparticles-chitosan composite film for cholesterol biosensor

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (NanoZnO) uniformly dispersed in chitosan (CHIT) have been used to fabricate a hybrid nanocomposite film onto indium-tin-oxide (ITO) glass plate. Cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) has been immobilized onto this NanoZnO-CHIT composite film using physiosorption technique. Both NanoZnO-CHIT/ITO electrode and ChOx/NanoZnO-CHIT/ITO bioelectrode have been characterized using Fourier transform-infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), cyclic voltammetry (CV), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques, respectively. The ChOx/NanoZnO-CHIT/ITO bioelectrode exhibits linearity from 5 to 300 mg dl⁻¹ of cholesterol with detection limit as 5 mg dl⁻¹, sensitivity as 1.41 × 10⁻⁴ A mg dl⁻¹ and the value of Michaelis-Menten constant (K_m) as 8.63 mg dl⁻¹. This cholesterol biosensor can be used to estimate cholesterol in serum samples.