Polyacrylonitrile/Reduced Graphene Oxide Free-Standing Nanofibrous Membranes for Detecting Endocrine Disruptors

Abstract

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are emerging pollutants whose uncontrolled release in natural aquatic environments can pose risks to human and animal health. In this scenario, the development of simple, low-cost, and sensitive methods to detect trace amounts of EDCs in the environment is highly sought. In this work, a nanofiber-based sensor was fabricated by functionalizing a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) electrospun nanofibrous membrane with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) to be used as a flexible and free-standing electrode to detect EDCs through electrical impedance measurements. The rGO was obtained from graphene oxide using a hydrothermal route, while the PAN/rGO composite membrane was prepared through vacuum filtration. The rGO provided high electrical conductivity to the membrane, which presented a good performance in the detection of endocrine hormones. The electrical resistance variation enabled the detection of 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) in a linear range between 10–5 and 10–11 mol L–1. Moreover, by using the principal component analysis (PCA) for data treatment, the sensor was able to discriminate EE2, estrone, estradiol, and progesterone at 100 pmol L–1 in real river water samples. These results open up the possibility to fabricate in a simple way functionalized nanofibrous membranes to be used as sensing material for the detection of varied analytes with high sensitivity and low cost.

Review—Electrostatic Spinning for Manufacturing Sensitive Layers of Flexible Sensors and Their Structural Design

“…32 The vast majority of current electrostatic spinning technologies are used to fabricate flexible substrates for sensitive layers in flexible sensors. After electrospinning the substrate material into a nanofiber film, the active conductive filler is then doped onto the flexible substrate by in situ polymerization, [33][34][35] vacuum evaporation, 36 sputtering, [37][38][39][40] chemical deposition, extraction, 36,41,42 electrostatic spraying, 43 and dip coating [44][45][46][47][48][49] to form a composite nanofiber film with conductive activity. Structural properties of flexible substrates provide high sensitivity of such composite nanofiber membrane.…”

Electrospun Nanofibers as Chemosensors for Detecting Environmental Pollutants: A Review

“…Nanomaterials, due to their special structure and a series of unique physical and chemical properties, are widely used in chemosensors, e.g., for the fixation of active molecules, signal detection, and transmission amplification; greatly improve the sensitivity; shorten the response time; and achieve high-throughput real-time detection, providing a new research path and huge space for the development of chemosensors [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69]. NFs have become a hot spot in sensing research due to their unique structure, and the electrospinning process can directly and continuously prepare polymer NFs [70][71][72][73].…”

Endophytic fungus from Handroanthus impetiginosus immobilized on electrospun nanofibrous membrane for bioremoval of bisphenol A

“…Polyacrylonitrile (PAN, M w = 120,000 g mol − 1 ) and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF, anhydrous, 99.8%) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. PAN electrospun nano ber was obtained according to previously reported (Facure et al 2022). The electrospinning solution was prepared by dissolving PAN (10% w/v) in DMF, and stirred for 6h at room temperature.…”