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The main objective of the PLASMON-ELECTROLIGHT project is to elaborate an efficient sensor strategy to measure pharmaceuticals in surface water near big cities, farms, pharmaceutical industry, etc. The detection technique will be developed from an original photoelectrochemical detection strategy that is boosted by advanced photosensitizers, plasmonic enhancement, and affinity recognition.
Recently, we have developed an original electrochemical detection principle based on photocatalytic oxidation mediated by singlet oxygen (Trashin et al., Nature Communications, 2017). We applied this strategy for the detection of the antibiotic amoxicillin at the concentration level of 20 nM. Within this new project we will now explore and advance the detection strategy, by preparing more efficient photoactive materials (gaining sensitivity) and by introducing affinity elements (gaining selectivity).
The photoactive hybrid materials must be designed carefully through rational choice of photosensitizers and metallic nanostructures, theoretical modeling, and experimental correlations. Next, the materials will be combined with biorecognition using aptamers and employed for preparation of a photoelectrochemical sensor. One of the important features of the photoelectrochemical detection strategy is that the signal and background can be simultaneously measured in the presence of an analyte by simply switching light on and off. This makes the measurement more robust in changeable medium even without or minimal sample preparation.
Beside elaboration the superior sensing strategy for environmental monitoring, our objectives include a better understanding of the mechanism for plasmonic enhancement of photosensitizers’ activity, developing new photoreactive materials and better methods to tests them. This will contribute to different field of chemical sensing, material science, and energy conversion.
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