Rico Shergill is a Ph. D. student working on the development of novel 3D printable materials for electrochemical biosensors able to detect signalling molecules in a gastrointestinal matrix. He works in Professor Patel’s lab, with supervision from Dr M. Yeoman.

His introduction to the field of electrochemical sensors occurred during a project in the final year of his chemistry degree. The project was at the University of Brighton where he worked under Prof Patel, studying the detection of falsified clopidogrel in the presence of excipients using voltammetry.

Manufacture of electrochemical sensors using 3D printing has provided the ability to mass produce complete analytical sensing devices in varying geometries. The filament used to make 3D printed electrodes contain a fixed percentage of conductive carbon which is mixed with a non-conductive thermoplastic such as polylactic acid (PLA). 3D printed electrodes are thus composite electrodes, which consist of either ordered or random arrangement of conductive and nonconductive particles. Traditional approaches in the manufacturing of carbon composite electrodes yield high batch variability, however, 3D printing has reduced the variability between batches of electrodes making this a suitable approach for reproducible manufacturing of carbon composite electrodes. Our findings highlight that when manufacturing conductive thermoplastics using 3D printing, instrument settings and composition of materials should be considered to optimise the performance of the printed electrochemical sensor.

Rico graduated with an 1st Class Chemistry degree from the University of Brighton in 2020.  Rico has won the Enviromental science impact award poster prize at the analytical research forum 2022