Abstract
Rapid and accurate evaluation of pollutant contamination in water is one of the key tasks of environmental monitoring. To make onsite assessment feasible, the analytical tools should be easy to operate, with minimal sample preparation needs. Gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-based sensors have the potential to detect toxins, heavy metals, and inorganic and organic pollutants in water rapidly with high sensitivity, and they are expected to play an increasingly important role in environmental monitoring. In this article, the synthesis, fabrication and functionalization of AuNPs are discussed, and the recent advances in the development and application of AuNP-based sensors for the determination of various pollutants contamination in water are reviewed.
About the authors
Chao Wang received BS and MS degrees in Environmental Science from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, in 2010 and Iowa State University, United States, in 2012, respectively. She is currently a PhD student and a research assistant at Iowa State University. Her research interests focus on the development of nanobiosensors for environmental surveillance.
Chenxu Yu is an assistant professor of biological engineering at Iowa State University, with a primary appointment in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, where his research includes: biosensors utilizing nanomaterials for pathogen detection and disease diagnosis; spectroscopic imaging for characterization of biological systems; and bionanotechnology for biomass processing. He received a BS degree in Physics and Astronomy from Nanjing University in 1993, an MS degree in Biochemical Engineering from Dalian Institute of Light Industry in 1998, and a PhD in Biosystems Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003.
©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
