Chemically diverse modified electrodes: A new approach to the design and implementation of sensor arrays Original Research Article

An array of five gold electrodes modified with different substituted alkanethiols has been developed that is sensitive to the identity of a series of similar redox active analytes. A double-potential-step methodology was used to interrogate the electrodes in order to extract a maximum amount of information on a short time-scale. The resulting response patterns, containing 80 variables, were used in conjunction with principal component analysis and artificial neural networks for pattern recognition. The degree of overlapping sensitivity between 80 variables as well as reproducibility from measurement to measurement and array to array is discussed. Finally, a method for normalizing the response patterns in order to produce concentration independent patterns is described.