A new immobilization and sensing platform for nitrate quantification

Plasmonic nanoparticles for colorimetric detection of nitrite and nitrate

Irregular and unknowingly use of chemical compounds is a serious threat to the environment, human health, and other living organisms attributable and intensified by the growing population and increasing demand for food. Nitrite and nitrate are among those compounds that are widely used in agricultural and industrial products. Therefore on-site, rapid, simple, and accurate monitoring of nitrite/nitrate is highly desirable. In this review, while emphasizing the importance of nitrite and nitrate in food chain safety and health of living organisms, their measurement methods, in particular, nanoplasmonic colorimetric sensors are comprehensively discussed based on the researches in this field. Nanoplasmonic-based sensors have proved to be successful in comparison with traditional methods due to their low cost, biocompatibility, high sensitivity and selectivity, and most importantly, the ability to visually detect and be used on-site to measure nitrite and nitrate. The design principle of nanoplasmonic sensors will be presented into two categories of aggregation- and etching-based detection followed by their applications in nitrite detection. The nitrate measurement will be discussed based on either direct detection of nitrate or indirect strategy in which nitrate is reduced to nitrite by enzymes or metals. Finally, the remaining challenges and prospects in this topic will be described and outlined.

Combined SPRi Sensor for Simultaneous Detection of Nitrate and Ammonium in Wastewater

Water pollution is a serious problem in modern society. Agriculture, being responsible for the discharge of agrochemicals, organic matter, or drug residues, produces a huge amount of wastewater. Aquaponics has the potential to reduce both water consumption and the impact of water pollution on fish farming and plant production. In the aquatic environment, inorganic nitrogen is mostly present in the form of nitrate and ammonium ions. Nitrate, as a final product of ammonia mineralization, is the most common chemical contaminant in aquifers around the world. For continuous monitoring of nitrogen compounds in wastewater, we propose a sensor for the simultaneous detection of nitrate and ammonium. A surface plasmon resonance imaging method with enzyme-mediated detection was used. Active layers of nitrate reductase and glutamine synthetase were created on the gold surface of a biochip and tested for the sensing of nitrate and ammonium in water from an aquaponic system. The proposed sensor was applied in water samples with a concentration of NO3- and NH4+ in a range between 24-780 mg·L-1 and 0.26-120 mg·L-1, respectively, with minimal pretreatment of a sample by its dilution with a buffer prior to contact on a biochip surface.

Graphene Nanoparticle-Based, Nitrate Ion Sensor Characteristics

Gathering and sensing of nitrate ions in the environment due to the abundant use in industry and agriculture have become an important problem, which needs to be overcome. On the other hand, new materials such as carbon-based materials with unique properties have become an ideal choice in sensing technology. In this research, the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) polymer as a carbon source in the melted form was used and carbon nanoparticles in the form of a strand between two electrodes were analyzed. It was fabricated between copper electrodes by the pulsed arc discharge method. Subsequently, the constructed metal–nanoparticle–metal (MNM) contact was employed to recognize the nitrate ions. Therefore, NaNO₃, Pb(NO₃)₂, Zn(NO₃)₂, and NH₄NO₃ samples as a usual pollutant of industrial and agricultural wastewater were examined. All nitrate compounds in ten different densities were tested and sensor I-V characteristic was investigated, which showed that all the aforesaid compounds were recognizable by the graphene nano-strand. Additionally, the proposed structure in the presence of ions was simulated and acceptable agreement between them was reported. Additionally, the proposed structure analytically was investigated, and a comparison study between the proposed model and measured results was carried out and realistic agreement reported.

Modified graphene oxide sensors for ultra-sensitive detection of nitrate ions in water

Nitrate ions is a very common contaminant in drinking water and has a significant impact on the environment, necessitating routine monitoring. Due to its chemical and physical properties, it is hard to directly detect nitrate ions with high sensitivity in a simple and inexpensive manner. Herein with amino group modified graphene oxide (GO) as a sensing element, we show a direct and ultra-sensitive method to detect nitrate ions, at a lowest detected concentration of 5 nM in river water samples, much lower than the reported methods based on absorption spectroscopy. Furthermore, unlike the reported strategies based on absorption spectroscopy wherein the nitrate concentration is determined by monitoring an increase in aggregation of gold nanoparticles (GNPs), our method evaluates the concentration of nitrate ions based on reduction in aggregation of GNPs for monitoring in real samples. To improve sensitivity, several optimizations were performed, including the assessment of the amount of modified GO required, concentration of GNPs and incubation time. The detection methodology was characterized by zeta potential, TEM and SEM. Our results indicate that an enrichment of modified GO with nitrate ions contributed to excellent sensitivity and the entire detection procedure could be completed within 75 min with only 20 μl of sample. This simple and rapid methodology was applied to monitor nitrate ions in real samples with excellent sensitivity and minimum pretreatment. The proposed approach paves the way for a novel means to detect anions in real samples and highlights the potential of GO based detection strategy for water quality monitoring.

Efficient nitrogen-13 radiochemistry catalyzed by a highly stable immobilized biocatalyst

In the present work, an unprecedented strategy for the reduction of [¹³N]NO₃⁻ to [¹³N]NO₂⁻ using a heterogeneous biocatalyst will be presented.