Dengue is a serious global health concern especially in tropical and subtropical countries. About 2.5 billion of the world's population is at risk for dengue infection. Early diagnosis is the key to prevent the deterioration of health of the patient to severe illness. Laboratory diagnosis of dengue is essential for providing appropriate supportive treatment to dengue patients with febrile illness, which is difficult to diagnose clinically. Here, we demonstrate surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) based diagnosis of dengue virus in clinical blood samples collected from total of 102 subjects. All of the samples were well characterized by conventional NS1 antigen and IgM antibody ELISA kits. The silver nanorods array fabricated by glancing angle deposition technique were employed as SERS substrates. A small amount of patient blood serum (5 μL) was taken for analysis and the report was prepared within a minute. SERS spectra of pure NS1 protein as well as spiked in serum was also recorded separately. Principal component analysis (PCA) was employed as the statistical tool to differentiate dengue positive, dengue negative, and healthy subjects on the basis of their respective SERS spectra. This method provides a sensitive, rapid, and field deployable diagnosis of dengue at the early stage (within 5 days of the onset of symptoms).
Gas sensing properties of ZnO nanowires prepared via thermal chemical vapor deposition method were investigated by analyzing change in their photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The as-synthesized nanowires show two different PL peaks positioned at 380 nm and 520 nm. The 380 nm emission is ascribed to near band edge emission, and the green peak (520 nm) appears due to the oxygen vacancy defects. The intensity of the green PL signal enhances upon hydrogen gas exposure, whereas it gets quenched upon oxygen gas loading. The ZnO nanowires' sensing response values were observed as about 54% for H2 gas and 9% for O2 gas at room temperature for 50 sccm H2/O2 gas flow rate. The sensor response was also analyzed as a function of sample temperature ranging from 300 K to 400 K. A conclusion was derived from the observations that the H2/O2 gases affect the adsorbed oxygen species on the surface of ZnO nanowires. The adsorbed species result in the band bending and hence changes the depletion region which causes variation in PL signal. A photoluminescence based gas sensing technique has advantage over a conductometric technique due to its higher sensitivity and faster response time.
Hydrogen sulfide (HS) is a hazardous gas, which not only harms living beings but also poses a significant risk to damage materials placed in culture and art museums, due to its corrosive nature. We demonstrate a novel approach for selective rapid detection of HS gas using silver nanorods (AgNRs) arrays on glass substrates at ambient conditions. The arrays were prepared by glancing angle deposition method. The colorimetric and water wetting properties of as-fabricated arrays were found to be highly sensitive toward the sulfurization, in the presence of HS gas with a minimal concentration in ppm range. The performance of AgNRs as HS gas sensor is investigated by its sensing ability of 5 ppm of gas with an exposure time of only 30 s. We have developed an android-based mobile app to monitor real-time colorimetric detection of HS. The wettability detection has been carried out by a mobile camera. A comparative analysis for different gases reveals the highest sensitivity and selectivity of the array AgNRs toward HS. The rapid detection has also been demonstrated for HS emission from aged wool fabric. Thus, high sensing ability of AgNRs toward HS gas may have potential applications in health monitoring and art conservation.
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