KAUSTat: A Wireless, Wearable, Open-Source Potentiostat for Electrochemical Measurements

Advanced technology is needed every day for wireless, wearable sensors/potentiostats to record real-time measurements and monitor the chemical processes and physiological signals of the human body. Most of the potentiostats present on the market work as "black boxes" without access to their internal structure and their limited information of circuitry makes it challenging to develop new measurement methods and further integration with other instruments. Despite high resolution (e.g., measure low currents with high precision and low noise) of commercial potentiostats, the potentiostats used in laboratories are heavy, non-portable, and expensive. To fill this void, we introduce KAUSTat, a wireless, wearable, open-source potentiostat. The KAUSTat device interfaces with a smartphone to generate cyclic voltammetry curves using a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol. Experiments with buffer and hexacyanoferrate solutions were conducted to assess the efficiency of the device. The results generated by KAUSTat are in agreement with those of the commercial potentiostat "Emstat." Considering wireless and wearable features of KAUSTat, it represents a convenient portable device for on-site sensing with low-power requirements.