Nanoparticle-Based Liquid-Liquid Extraction for the Determination of Metal Ions.

Traditional liquid phase extraction techniques that use optically responsive ligands provide benefits that enable cost-efficient and rapid measurements. However, these approaches have limitations in their excessive use of organic solvents and multistep procedures. Here, we developed a simple, nanoscale extraction approach by replacing the macroscopic organic phase with hydrophobic polymeric nanoparticles that are dispersed in an aqueous feed.

Nanodiagnostics to monitor biofilm oxygen metabolism for antibiotic susceptibility testing.

In clinical environments, many serious antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by biofilm-forming species. This presents issues when attempting to determine antimicrobial dosing as traditional antibiotic susceptibility tests (ASTs) are typically designed around planktonic bacteria and thus offer information that is not relevant to the biofilm phenotype present in the patient. Even the popular Calgary biofilm device may provide inaccurate minimum biofilm inhibitory concentrations (MBICs) and can be time- and material-intensive.