Sensing Antibiotics in Wastewater Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.

Rapid and cost-effective detection of antibiotics in wastewater and through wastewater treatment processes is an important first step in developing effective strategies for their removal. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has the potential for label-free, real-time sensing of antibiotic contamination in the environment. This study reports the testing of two gold nanostructures as SERS substrates for the label-free detection of quinoline, a small-molecular-weight antibiotic that is commonly found in wastewater.

Decoding the metabolic response of for sensing trace heavy metals in water.

Heavy metal contamination due to industrial and agricultural waste represents a growing threat to water supplies. Frequent and widespread monitoring for toxic metals in drinking and agricultural water sources is necessary to prevent their accumulation in humans, plants, and animals, which results in disease and environmental damage. Here, the metabolic stress response of bacteria is used to report the presence of heavy metal ions in water by transducing ions into chemical signals that can be fingerprinted using machine learning analysis of vibrational spectra.

In-situ Raman analysis of hydrogenation in well-defined ultrathin molybdenum diselenide deposits synthesized through vapor phase deposition.

We report on the synthesis, characterization and in-situ Raman spectroscopy analysis of hydrogenation in ultrathin crystalline MoSe deposits. We use a controllable vapor phase synthesis method using MoSe powder as the only precursor, to fabricate nano- to micro-size few layer thick MoSe deposits with tunable number densities on SiO/Si substrates. We employ this controllable synthesis method to correlate characteristic Raman spectroscopy response of MoSe at ca.

Towards understanding the doping mechanism of organic semiconductors by Lewis acids.

Precise doping of organic semiconductors allows control over the conductivity of these materials, an essential parameter in electronic applications. Although Lewis acids have recently shown promise as dopants for solution-processed polymers, their doping mechanism is not yet fully understood. In this study, we found that B(CF) is a superior dopant to the other Lewis acids investigated (BF, BBr and AlCl).