Abstract
In this study, a biosensor was developed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to rapidly measure the fungicide iprovalicarb residues in agricultural products. The biosensor was designed to include micro-pumps and solenoid valves for fluid transport, a spectrophotometer cuvet as a reaction chamber, a photodiode with a light-emitting diode for optical density measurement, and a control microcomputer to implement assay. The rate of change in optical density of the cuvet was read as final signal output. Micro-pumps were evaluated to investigate their delivery capability, the highest values of the error and the coefficient of variation were 4.3% and 4.6% respectively. As the incubation period was reduced from 15 minutes to 11 minutes to shorten the total processing time, the sensor sensitivity was decreased as the antibody dilution ratio was reduced to a half. The maximum usable period of the coated cuvet was found to be two days with 1% error limit. To predict the concentration of the iprovalicarb residue in agricultural products, a linear calibration model was obtained with r-square values of 0.992 for potato and 0.985 for onion. In validation test for the samples of potatoes and onions against the high performance liquid chromatography, very high correlation values were obtained as 0.996 and 0.993 respectively. Using the cuvet immobilized with antigen, it took 21-minutes for the biosensor to complete the measuring process of the iprovalicarb residues.
