Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.3390/mi17060635

Publication Title

Micromachines

Volume

17

Issue

6

Pages

635

Abstract

Potentiostats are essential to electrochemical sensing, enabling precise control of electrode potentials and measurement of current responses. As demand grows for portable, wearable, and point-of-care systems, potentiostat design has evolved from benchtop instruments to compact, low-power, and wirelessly connected platforms. This review provides a comprehensive, system-level perspective on modern potentiostat architectures, covering operational principles, analog front-end design, signal generation and acquisition, communication protocols, and software integration. Unlike prior reviews that treat these aspects independently, this work integrates electrochemical theory with electronic design and data communication frameworks. Key components, including operational amplifiers, transimpedance amplifiers, DAC/ADC subsystems, and microcontroller-based control, are examined alongside communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, and NFC. Critical challenges related to miniaturization, noise, power constraints, and reproducibility are analyzed using representative platforms. This review highlights the transition of potentiostats into integrated, intelligent, and connected sensing systems, and outlines design considerations for scalable electrochemical applications in clinical, environmental, and industrial domains.

Comments

© 2026 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Data availability statement: Article states: "No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article."

Original Publication Citation

Aviha, R., & Slaughter, G. (2026). Modern potentiostat architectures for electrochemical sensing: Design, integration, and future directions. Micromachines, 17(6), Article 635. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi17060635

ORCID

0000-0002-4307-091X (Slaughter)

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