Non-Destructive Pest Detection: Innovations and Challenges in Sensing Airborne Semiochemicals.

Pests, especially invasive ones, pose significant threats to the global ecosystem, crop security, and agriculture economy. Sensing airborne semiochemicals as a nondestructive detection method has been recognized as a promising strategy to detect the presence of these living pests on site. However, sensing airborne semiochemicals in fields is challenging, as they are transmitted in concentrations as low as several nanograms per cubic meter in chemically diverse environments.

Nanowire Array Breath Acetone Sensor for Diabetes Monitoring.

Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a life-threatening acute complication of diabetes characterized by the accumulation of ketone bodies in the blood. Breath acetone, a ketone, directly correlates with blood ketones. Therefore, monitoring breath acetone can significantly enhance the safety and efficacy of diabetes care.

Simultaneous electrochemical detection of glycated and human serum albumin for diabetes management.

Developing highly selective and sensitive biosensors for diabetes management blood glucose monitoring is essential to reduce the health risks associated with diabetes. Assessing the glycation (GA) of human serum albumin (HSA) serves as an indicator for medium-term glycemic control, making it suitable for assessing the efficacy of blood glucose management protocols. However, most biosensors are not capable of simultaneous detection of the relative fraction of GA to HSA in a clinically relevant range.

High-Performance Optoelectronic Gas Sensing Based on All-Inorganic Mixed-Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals with Halide Engineering.

Gas sensors are of great interest to portable and miniaturized sensing technologies with applications ranging from air quality monitoring to explosive detection and medical diagnostics, but the existing chemiresistive NO sensors still suffer from issues such as poor sensitivity, high operating temperature, and slow recovery. Herein, a high-performance NO sensors based on all-inorganic perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) is reported, achieving room temperature operation with ultra-fast response and recovery time. After tailoring the halide composition, superior sensitivity of ≈67 at 8 ppm NO is obtained in CsPbI Br PNC sensors with a detection level down to 2 ppb, which outperforms other nanomaterial-based NO sensors.

The current understanding of precision medicine and personalised medicine in selected research disciplines: study protocol of a systematic concept analysis.

Introduction: The terms 'precision medicine' and 'personalised medicine' have become key terms in health-related research and in science-related public communication. However, the application of these two concepts and their interpretation in various disciplines are heterogeneous, which also affects research translation and public awareness. This leads to confusion regarding the use and distinction of the two concepts.

A Self-Powered Portable Nanowire Array Gas Sensor for Dynamic NO Monitoring at Room Temperature.

The fast development of the Internet of Things (IoT) has driven an increasing consumer demand for self-powered gas sensors for real-time data collection and autonomous responses in industries such as environmental monitoring, workplace safety, smart cities, and personal healthcare. Despite intensive research and rapid progress in the field, most reported self-powered devices, specifically NO sensors for air pollution monitoring, have limited sensitivity, selectivity, and scalability. Here, a novel photovoltaic self-powered NO sensor is demonstrated based on axial p-i-n homojunction InP nanowire (NW) arrays, that overcome these limitations.

Electrodetection of Small Molecules by Conformation-Mediated Signal Enhancement.

Electrochemical biosensors allow the rapid, selective, and sensitive transduction of critical biological parameters into measurable signals. However, current electrochemical biosensors often fail to selectively and sensitively detect small molecules because of their small size and low molecular complexity. We have developed an electrochemical biosensing platform that harnesses the analyte-dependent conformational change of highly selective solute-binding proteins to amplify the redox signal generated by analyte binding.

A user preference analysis of commercial breath ketone sensors to inform the development of portable breath ketone sensors for diabetes management in young people.

Background: Portable breath ketone sensors may help people with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) avoid episodes of diabetic ketoacidosis; however, the design features preferred by users have not been studied. We aimed to elucidate breath sensor design preferences of young people with T1DM (age 12 to 16) and their parents to inform the development of a breath ketone sensor prototype that would best suit their diabetes management needs.

Research Designs And Methods: To elicit foundational experiences from which design preference ideas could be generated, two commercially available breath ketone sensors, designed for ketogenic diet monitoring, were explored over one week by ten young people with T1DM.

Polypyrrole Percolation Network Gas Sensors: Improved Reproducibility through Conductance Monitoring during Polymer Growth.

Conducting-polymer-based electrical percolation networks are promising materials for use in high-sensitivity chemiresistive devices. An ongoing challenge is to create percolation networks that have consistent properties, so that devices based on these materials do not have to be individually calibrated. Here, an in situ conductance technique is used during the electrochemical growth of polypyrrole (PPy) percolation networks.

Surface Functionalization and Texturing of Optical Metasurfaces for Sensing Applications.

Optical metasurfaces are planar metamaterials that can mediate highly precise light-matter interactions. Because of their unique optical properties, both plasmonic and dielectric metasurfaces have found common use in sensing applications, enabling label-free, nondestructive, and miniaturized sensors with ultralow limits of detection. However, because bare metasurfaces inherently lack target specificity, their applications have driven the development of surface modification techniques that provide selectivity.

PEDOT percolation networks for reversible chemiresistive sensing of NO.

Detection of NO plays an important role in various safety applications. However, sensitive and reversible sensing of NO remains a challenge. Here we demonstrate the use of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) conducting polymer percolation networks for chemiresistive sensing of NO.

An Outlook of Recent Advances in Chemiresistive Sensor-Based Electronic Nose Systems for Food Quality and Environmental Monitoring.

An electronic nose (Enose) relies on the use of an array of partially selective chemical gas sensors for identification of various chemical compounds, including volatile organic compounds in gas mixtures. They have been proposed as a portable low-cost technology to analyse complex odours in the food industry and for environmental monitoring. Recent advances in nanofabrication, sensor and microcircuitry design, neural networks, and system integration have considerably improved the efficacy of Enose devices.

ANFO vapour detection with conducting polymer percolation network sensors and GC/MS.

Ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil (ANFO) is commonly used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The development of ANFO vapour sensors that are small, inexpensive, and easy to use will enable widespread IED detection in the context of security and humanitarian demining. Because of concealment and the low vapour pressures of most explosive materials, achieving sufficiently high sensitivity and low limits of detection are some of the main challenges of explosives vapour detection.

Shapes of epitaxial gold nanocrystals on SrTiO substrates.

Morphological control of gold nanocrystals is important as their catalytic and optical properties are highly shape dependent. In this paper we report the shapes of gold nanocrystals which deviate from the equilibrium Wulff shape due to the influence of the SrTiO3 single crystal substrates. The gold crystals are characterized by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Interrogation of the Effect of Polymorphism of a Metal-Organic Framework Host on the Structure of Embedded Pd Guest Nanoparticles.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are very promising host materials for nanoscale guest materials. However, some MOFs such as MIL-53 are known to undergo phase transitions which can complicate the guest particle size control. In this study, Pd nanoparticles embedded in Al-MIL-53 were synthesised via (a) electrodeposition and (b) gas-phase reduction.

Electrochemical studies of hydrogen chloride gas in several room temperature ionic liquids: mechanism and sensing.

The electrochemical behaviour of highly toxic hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas has been investigated in six room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) containing imidazolium/pyrrolidinium cations and range of anions on a Pt microelectrode using cyclic voltammetry (CV). HCl gas exists in a dissociated form of H(+) and [HCl2](-) in RTILs. A peak corresponding to the oxidation of [HCl2](-) was observed, resulting in the formation of Cl2 and H(+).

Sensors for highly toxic gases: methylamine and hydrogen chloride detection at low concentrations in an ionic liquid on Pt screen printed electrodes.

Commercially available Pt screen printed electrodes (SPEs) have been employed as possible electrode materials for methylamine (MA) and hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas detection. The room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([C₂mim][NTf₂]) was used as a solvent and the electrochemical behaviour of both gases was first examined using cyclic voltammetry. The reaction mechanism appears to be the same on Pt SPEs as on Pt microelectrodes.