Project description:A polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film-based capacitive biosensor was developed for glucose sensing. This device consists of a PVDF film sandwiched between two electrodes. A capacitive biosensor measures the dielectric properties of the dielectric layers at the interface between the electrolyte and the electrode. A glucose oxidase (GOx) enzyme was immobilized onto the electrode to oxidize glucose. In practice, the biochemical reaction of glucose with the GOx enzyme generates free electron carriers. Consequently, the potential difference between the electrodes is increased, resulting in a measurable voltage output of the biosensor. The device was tested for various glucose concentrations in the range of 0.013 to 5.85 M, and various GOx enzyme concentrations between 4882.8 and 2.5 million units/L. We found that the sensor output increased with increasing glucose concentration up to 5.85 M. These results indicate that the PVDF film-based capacitive biosensors can be properly applied to glucose sensing and provide opportunities for the low-cost fabrication of glucose-based biosensors based on PVDF materials.
Project description:Polyamide noncoated device for adsorption-based microextraction (PANDA microextraction) is a brand new, easy to prepare, environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and efficient sample preparation method created entirely with the use of 3D printing. The proposed method is based on the extractive proprieties of the unmodified polyamide and carbon fiber blends and is compared with the highly selective thin-film microextraction (TFME). In addition, 3D printing was used to simplify the process of TFME. Prototype sample preparation devices were evaluated by the extraction of oral fluid spiked with 38 small molecules with diverse chemical natures, such as lipophilicity in the log P range of 0.2-7.2. The samples were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The results indicate that chemically and thermally resistant 3D printed supports can be successfully used as a cost-saving, environmentally friendly solution for the preparation of TFME devices, alternative to the conventional metal supports, with only marginal differences in the extraction yield (mean = 4.0%, median = 1.8%, range = 0.0-22.3%, n = 38). Even more remarkably, in some cases, the newly proposed PANDA microextraction method exceeded the reference TFME in terms of the extraction efficacy and offered excellent sample cleanup as favorable matrix effects were observed (mean = -8.5%, median = 7.5%, range = -34.7-20.0%, n = 20). This innovative approach paves the road to the simplified sample preparation with the use of emerging extractive 3D printing polymers.
Project description:It is essential to monitor organic pollutants to control contamination levels in environmental water bodies. In this respect, the development of new materials based on functionalised polymeric films for the measurement of toxic compounds is of interest. In this study, we prepare new films based on polymer cellulose triacetate modified with multi-walled carbon nanotubes for the monitoring of selected compounds: a fungicide (chlorpyrifos) and two emerging contaminants, the musk tonalide and the bactericide triclosan, which are used in the formulation of personal care products. The films, upon contact with water samples and following the principles of thin film microextraction, allow the determination of organic pollutants at low concentration levels. The contact time of the film with a predetermined volume of water is fixed at 60 min, and the compounds are eluted with a small volume (1 mL) of organic solvent for GC-MS analysis. Parameters such as repeatability for different films and detection limits are found to be satisfactory. Applying the method to river water demonstrates its suitability and, in the cases of chlorpyrifos and tonalide, the absence of a significant matrix effect.
Project description:Exposure to organophosphorus pesticides (OP) can have chronic adverse effects that are independent of inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, the classic target for acute OP toxicity. In pure proteins, the organophosphorus pesticide chlorpyrifos oxon induces a crosslink between lysine and glutamate (or aspartate) with loss of water. Tubulin is particularly sensitive to OP-induced crosslinking. Our goal was to explore OP-induced crosslinking in a complex protein sample, MAP-rich tubulin from Sus scrofa, and to test 8 OP for their capacity to catalyze isopeptide crosslinking. We treated 100 µg of MAP-rich tubulin with 100 µM chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos oxon, methamidophos, paraoxon, diazinon, diazoxon, monocrotophos, or dichlorvos. Each sample was separated on SDS PAGE and stained with Coomassie blue. Five gel slices (at about 30, 50, 150, and 300 kDa, and the top of the separating gel) were removed from the lanes for each of the eight OP samples and from untreated control lanes. These gel slices were subjected to in-gel trypsin digestion. MSMS fragmentation spectra of the tryptic peptides were examined for isopeptide crosslinks. Sixteen spectra yielded convincing evidence for isopeptide crosslinked peptides. Ten were from the chlorpyrifos oxon reaction, 1 from dichlorvos, 1 from paraoxon, 1 from diazinon, and 3 from diazoxon. It was concluded that catalysis of protein crosslinking is a general property of organophosphorus pesticides and pesticide metabolites.
Project description:A systematic evaluation of eight different coatings made of solid phase extraction (SPE) and carbon-based sorbents immobilized with polyacrylonitrile in the thin-film microextraction (TFME) format using LC-MS/MS was described. The investigated coatings included graphene, graphene oxide, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), carboxylated MWCNTs, as carbon-based coatings, and polystyrene-divinylbenzene (PS-DVB), octadecyl-silica particles (C18), hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance particles (HLB) and phenyl-boronic acid modified particles (PBA), as SPE-based coatings. A total of 24 compounds of diverse moieties and of a wide range of polarities (log P from -2.99 to 6.98) were selected as probes. The investigated coatings were characterized based on their extraction performance toward the selected probes at different pH values and at optimized desorption conditions. In the case of SPE-based coatings, PS-DVB and HLB exhibited a balanced extraction for compounds within a wide range of polarities, and C18 showed superior extraction recoveries for non-polar analytes. Carbon-based coatings showed high affinity for non-polar compounds given that their main driving force for extraction is hydrophobic interactions. Interestingly, among the studied carbon-based coatings, graphene oxide showed the best extraction capabilities toward polar compounds owing to its oxygen-containing groups. Overall, this work provided important insights about the extraction mechanisms and properties of the investigated coatings, facilitating the coating selection when developing new TFME applications.
Project description:In the interest of the trend towards miniaturization of electronic gadgets, this study demonstrates a high-density data storage device with a very simple three-stacking layer consisting of only one charge trapping layer. A simple solution-processed technique has been used to fabricate the tristable non-volatile memory. The three-stacking layer was constructed in between two metals to form a two-terminal metal-insulator-metal structure. The fabricated device showed a large multilevel memory hysteresis window with a measured ON/OFF current ratio of 107 that might be attributed to the high charge trapped in molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) flakes-graphene quantum dots (GQDs) heterostructure. Transmission electron microscopy was performed to examine the orientation of MoS2-GQD and mixture dispersion preparation method. The obtained electrical data was used further to speculate the possible transport mechanisms through the fabricated device by a curve fitting technique. Also, endurance cycle and retention tests were performed at room temperature to investigate the stability of the device.
Project description:An in situ tracing study based on solid-phase microextraction (SPME) was conducted to investigate the uptake and elimination of organophosphorus pesticides in apples. A matrix-compatible polydimethylsiloxane/poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene)/polydimethylsiloxane fiber was produced to meet the needs of in situ sampling. The fiber had high extraction ability, good sensitivity and accuracy with respect to the analytes in apple pulp, and could be used 85 times. Although the sampling rate was changing over time, quantification was still achieved by the sampling rate calibration method. Some factors that affect its applicability were studied. The limits of detection were 0.18 ng/g for diazinon and 0.20 ng/g for chlorpyrifos, rather lower than the maximum residue limits of the National Food Safety Standard of China (GB 2763-2016) and the European Commission (Reg.(EU) No 834/2013, 2018/686). The accuracy of in situ SPME quantification was verified by comparing with the results obtained by the traditional liquid-liquid extraction method. In this work, the in situ sampling method is developed using apples, diazinon, and chlorpyrifos as a model system; however, this method can be used for in vivo analysis of fruits and vegetables for nutrition and safety monitoring.
Project description:It has been observed that the immobilization of a phosphotriesterase enzyme (PTE) onto polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes significantly decreased the enzyme activity, and this negative effect was attributed to the hydrophobic character of the membrane. The indirect indication of this reason was that the same enzyme immobilized on other membrane materials bearing hydrophilic character showed better performance. In this work, we provide direct evidence of the mechanism by immobilizing a PTE on a PVDF membrane hydrophilized by blending it with alkali lignin (AL). The PTE was immobilized on PVDF membrane by a covalent bond with the same procedure used in earlier studies to attribute changes in enzyme activity solely to the wettability properties (and not to the material chemistry). The activity of the PTE immobilized on the PVDF membrane hydrophilized with AL was 50% higher than that of the enzyme immobilized on the PVDF hydrophobic membrane. Further improvements of the membrane structure tailored for the development of a biocatalytic membrane reactor (BMR) were also promoted. In particular, the performance of the BMR was studied as a function of the thickness of the membrane, which allowed us to modulate the residence time into the enzyme-loaded membrane pores while maintaining the flow rate through the pores at a constant.
Project description:The impeding ban on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) prompted researchers to focus on hydrocarbon-based materials as constituents of next-generation proton exchange membranes (PEMs) for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). Here, we report on the fuel cell performance and durability of fluorine-lean PEMs prepared by the post-sulfonation of co-grafted α-methylstyrene (AMS) and 2-methylene glutaronitrile (MGN) monomers into preirradiated 12 µm polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) base film. The membranes were subjected to two distinctly different accelerated stress test (AST) protocols performed at open-circuit voltage (OCV): the US Department of Energy-similar chemical AST (90 °C, 30% relative humidity (RH), H2/air, 1 bara), developed originally for perfluoroalkylsulfonic acid (PFSA) membranes, and the high relative humidity AST (80 °C, 100% RH, H2/O2, 2.5 bara), designed for aromatic hydrocarbon membranes. We found that doping the grafted membranes with a metalated porphyrin antioxidant can simultaneously reduce membrane aging and improve fuel cell performance.
Project description:Due to the vulnerability of organic optoelectronic devices to moisture and oxygen, thin-film moisture barriers have played a critical role in improving the lifetime of the devices. Here, we propose a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) embedded Al2O3 thin film as a flexible moisture barrier. After layer-by-layer (LBL) staking of polymer and hBN flake composite layer, Al2O3 was deposited on the nano-laminate template by spatial plasma atomic layer deposition (PEALD). Because the hBN flakes in Al2O3 thin film increase the diffusion path of moisture, the composite layer has a low water vapor transmission ratio (WVTR) value of 1.8 × 10-4 g/m2 day. Furthermore, as embedded hBN flakes restrict crack propagation, the composite film exhibits high mechanical stability in repeated 3 mm bending radius fatigue tests.