Determination of silver nanoparticles by atomic absorption spectrometry after dispersive suspended microextraction followed by oxidative dissolution back-extraction

Basic and advanced spectrometric methods for complete nanoparticles characterization in bio/eco systems: current status and future prospects

The use of engineered nanoparticles in the environment and human life has increased in the last 20 years. The risk assessment concerning application of nanomaterials in biological systems requires their thorough characterization. Understanding the correlations between physicochemical properties of nanoparticles concerning not only the size, particle size distribution, number concentration, degree of aggregation, or agglomeration but also solubility, stability, binding affinity, surface activity, chemical composition, and nanoparticle synthesis yield allows their reliable characterization. Thus, to find the structure-function/property relationship of nanoparticles, multifaceted characterization approach based on more than one analytical technique is required. On the other hand, the increasing demand for identification and characterization of nanomaterials has contributed to the continuous development of spectrometric techniques which enables for their qualitative and quantitative analysis in complex matrices giving reproducible and reliable results. This review is aimed at providing a discussion concerning four main aspects of nanoparticle characterization: nanoparticle synthesis yield, particle size and number concentration, elemental and isotopic composition of nanoparticles, and their surface properties. The conventional and non-conventional spectrometric techniques such as spectrophotometry UV-Vis, mass spectrometric techniques working in conventional and single-particle mode, or those based on optical emission detection systems are described with special emphasis paid on their advantages and drawbacks. The application and recent advances of these methods are also comprehensively reviewed and critically discussed.

Reliable strategy of sensitive fluorescent nanoprobe for sensing silver nanoparticles using specific carbon dots derived from mercaptoacetic acid and melamine

Nitrogen and sulfur element co-decorated carbon nanodots (N,S-CDs) were synthesized by solid state hydrothermal method utilizing mercaptoacetic acid and melamine as the precursors. The obtained N,S-CDs had wonderful optical and chemical stability. The experimental results demonstrated that silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) could noticeably quench the fluorescence of N,S-CDs. The quenching of fluorescence signal from the presence of AgNPs may be attributed to inner filter effect. The crafted nanoprobe for sensing AgNPs was endowed with some specialties such as simplicity, excellent selectivity and sensitivity, environmental friendliness and low cost. The probe exhibited specific linearity from 0.024 to 1.77 nM, and was endowed a good limit of detection down to 0.022 nM. The experimental results demonstrated that the built probe could be an efficient tool for AgNPs detection and had a prospective application, and also provided a new direction for establishing innovative method for determining and monitoring pollutants from nanoparticles.

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Combined with Nonlinear Manifold Learning for Improvement Aluminum Alloy Classification Accuracy

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) spectra often include many intensity lines, and obtaining meaningful information from the input dataset and condensing the dimensions of the original data has become a significant challenge in LIBS applications. This study was conducted to classify five different types of aluminum alloys rapidly and noninvasively, utilizing the manifold dimensionality reduction technique and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier model integrated with LIBS technology. The augmented partial residual plot was used to determine the nonlinearity of the LIBS spectra dataset. To circumvent the curse of dimensionality, nonlinear manifold learning techniques, such as local tangent space alignment (LTSA), local linear embedding (LLE), isometric mapping (Isomap), and Laplacian eigenmaps (LE) were used. The performance of linear techniques, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and multidimensional scaling (MDS), was also investigated compared to nonlinear techniques. The reduced dimensions of the dataset were assigned as input datasets in the SVM classifier. The prediction labels indicated that the Isomap-SVM model had the best classification performance with the classification accuracy, the number of dimensions and the number of nearest neighbors being 96.67%, 11, and 18, respectively. These findings demonstrate that the combination of nonlinear manifold learning and multivariate analysis has the potential to classify the samples based on LIBS with reasonable accuracy.

Miniaturized analytical methods for determination of environmental contaminants of emerging concern - A review

The determination of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in environmental samples has become a challenging and critical issue. The present work focuses on miniaturized analytical strategies reported in the literature for the determination of CECs. The first part of the review provides brief overview of CECs whose monitoring in environmental samples is of particular significance, namely personal care products, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, UV-filters, newly registered pesticides, illicit drugs, disinfection by-products, surfactants, high technology rare earth elements, and engineered nanomaterials. Besides, an overview of downsized sample preparation approaches reported in the literature for the determination of CECs in environmental samples is provided. Particularly, analytical methodologies involving microextraction approaches used for the enrichment of CECs are discussed. Both solid phase- and liquid phase-based microextraction techniques are highlighted devoting special attention to recently reported approaches. Special emphasis is placed on newly developed materials used for extraction purposes in microextraction techniques. In addition, recent contributions involving miniaturized analytical flow techniques for the determination of CECs are discussed. Besides, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of point of need and portable devices have been identified and critically compared with chromatographic methods coupled to mass chromatography. Finally, challenging aspects regarding miniaturized analytical methods for determination of CECs are critically discussed.

Review: Microextraction Technique Based New Trends in Food Analysis

Food chemistry is the study and classification of the quality and origin of foods. The identification of definite biomarkers and the determination of residue contaminants such as toxins, pesticides, metals, human and veterinary drugs, which are a very common source of food-borne diseases. The food analysis is continuously demanding the improvement of more robust, sensitive, highly efficient, and economically beneficial analytical approaches to promise the traceability, safety, and quality of foods in the acquiescence with the consumers and legislation demands. The traditional methods have been used at the starting of the 20th century based on wet chemical methods. Now it existing the powerful analytical techniques used in food analysis and safety. This development has led to substantial enhancements in the analytical accuracy, precision, sensitivity, selectivity, thereby mounting the applied range of food applications. In the present decade, microextraction (micro-scale extraction) pays more attention due to its futures such as low consumption of solvent and sample, throughput analysis easy to operate, greener, robotics, and miniaturization, different adsorbents have been used in the microextraction process with unique nature recognized with wide range applications.

Silver Can Induce Oxidative Stress in Parallel to Other Chemical Elicitors to Modulate the Ripening of Chili Cultivars

Two chili cultivars, i.e., cv. Bullet and cv. Tejaswini, were evaluated on postharvest related ripening characteristics with varying durations under hydrogen peroxide, putrescine and silver treatments. The reducing sugar was inversely related to the maximum values at 7 days of ripening. Silver and putrescine were the most regulatory in terms of changing of the total carbohydrate content as compared to hydrolysis of the total reducing sugar. Regarding pectin methylesterase activity, both chilies were consistent, regardless of the number of days of incubation. Still, putrescine and silver were significant contributors to variations in cv. Bullet and cv. Tejaswani. For the pigment content, lycopene and chlorophyll increased in a linear manner, although these treatments significantly varied over time. Hydrogen peroxide and putrescine were responsible for the maximum accumulation of lycopene for both the cultivars, whereas, only cv. Tejaswani displayed maximum carotenoid for putrescine. Silver for both chili varieties was the most inhibitory for lycopene and carotenoid content. Superoxide had a good impact on the accumulation of lipid peroxides, irrespective of the chili variety. The maximum accumulation of lipid peroxide was recorded at seven days of treatment. Phenolics and flavonoids were in decreasing order for both the chili varieties, progressing through the days of the study period in a similar manner. Silver was the main contributor to variations in the phenolics and flavonoid contents in cv. Tejaswani. The solubilization of total carbohydrate into reducing sugar was in an inverse relationship, with the maximum values being reached at 7 days of ripening.

An anthraquinone-imidazole-based colorimetric and fluorescent sensor for the sequential detection of Ag+ and biothiols in living cells

An anthraquinone-imidazole-based highly selective colorimetric and fluorescent sensor for the sequential detection of Ag⁺ and biothiols in living cells is reported.

Development of a selective and sensitive colour reagent for gold and silver ions and its application to desktop scanner analysis

Desktop scanners can be favorable alternatives to sophisticated spectrophotometers for the assessment of analytes in complex real samples. Distinctively, our method has been thoroughly investigated, optimized, validated and successfully applied to the assessment of silver and gold in complex real samples, applying syringal rhodanine (SR) as a novel specifically tailored chromogenic reagent and using a desktop scanner as a versatile sensor. Maximum colour absorbance was obtained in the presence of cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) and cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC) for silver and gold chelates, respectively. For each metal ion, two ternary complexes were formed depending on the SR concentration with stoichiometries of 1 : 1 : 1 and 1 : 2 : 3 (Ag–SR–CPC) and 1 : 2 : 3 and 1 : 3 : 4 (Au–SR–CTAC), respectively. The methods adhered to Beer's law for 0.15–2.5 and 0.15–2.25 μg mL⁻¹ with detection limits of 0.0089 and 0.0163 μg mL⁻¹ for silver and gold, respectively. The molar absorptivities were 3.63 × 10⁴ and 6.15 × 10⁴ L mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹ at 550 nm and 554 nm, with Sandell's sensitivity indexes of 0.0029 and 0.0032 μg cm⁻², respectively. The method was successfully applied to the assessment of silver and gold in a wide range of complex environmental samples.

Desktop scanners can be favorable alternatives to sophisticated spectrophotometers for the assessment of analytes in complex real samples.