(Press-News.org) CORVALLIS, Ore. - Engineers have combined innovative optical technology with nanocomposite thin-films to create a new type of sensor that is inexpensive, fast, highly sensitive and able to detect and analyze a wide range of gases.
The technology might find applications in everything from environmental monitoring to airport security or testing blood alcohol levels. The sensor is particularly suited to detecting carbon dioxide, and may be useful in industrial applications or systems designed to store carbon dioxide underground, as one approach to greenhouse gas reduction.
Oregon State University has filed for a patent on the invention, developed in collaboration with scientists at the National Energy Technology Lab or the U.S. Department of Energy, and with support from that agency. The findings were just reported in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C.
University researchers are now seeking industrial collaborators to further perfect and help commercialize the system.
"Optical sensing is very effective in sensing and identifying trace-level gases, but often uses large laboratory devices that are terribly expensive and can't be transported into the field," said Alan Wang, a photonics expert and an assistant professor in the OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
"By contrast, we use optical approaches that can be small, portable and inexpensive," Wang said. "This system used plasmonic nanocrystals that act somewhat like a tiny lens, to concentrate a light wave and increase sensitivity."
This approach is combined with a metal-organic framework of thin films, which can rapidly adsorb gases within material pores, and be recycled by simple vacuum processes. After the thin film captures the gas molecules near the surface, the plasmonic materials act at a near-infrared range, help magnify the signal and precisely analyze the presence and amounts of different gases.
"By working at the near-infrared range and using these plasmonic nanocrystals, there's an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity," said Chih-hung Chang, an OSU professor of chemical engineering. "This type of sensor should be able to quickly tell exactly what gases are present and in what amount."
That speed, precision, portability and low cost, the researchers said, should allow instruments that can be used in the field for many purposes. The food industry, for industry, uses carbon dioxide in storage of fruits and vegetables, and the gas has to be kept at certain levels.
Gas detection can be valuable in finding explosives, and new technologies such as this might find application in airport or border security. Various gases need to be monitored in environmental research, and there may be other uses in health care, optimal function of automobile engines, and prevention of natural gas leakage.
INFORMATION:
The study this story is based on is available online: http://rsc.li/1y42GRv
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an antibiotic-resistant superbug, can cause life-threatening skin, bloodstream and surgical site infections or pneumonia. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine now report that cigarette smoke may make matters worse. The study, published March 30 by Infection and Immunity, shows that MRSA bacteria exposed to cigarette smoke become even more resistant to killing by the immune system.
"We already know that smoking cigarettes harms human respiratory and immune cells, and now we've shown ...
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- The micro RNA miR-22 has long been known for its ability to suppress cancer. However, questions remain about how it achieves this feat. For example, which molecules are regulating miR-22, and which are miR22 targets?
Researchers at UC Davis have unraveled some of these relationships, identifying several interactions that directly impact liver and colon cancer. The work provides new insights into how miR-22 operates and could potentially lead to new cancer therapies. The study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
"There are quite ...
WASHINGTON, April 2, 2015 -- It's supposed to help keep our bodies healthy in stressful situations. But the constant stress of our everyday lives means we're getting overexposed to cortisol. Raychelle Burks, Ph.D., explains why too much cortisol is bad for you in the latest episode of the Reactions series Get To Know A Molecule. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/fPnDaRYXHs4.
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For more than 50 years, scientists thought that the horned anole lizard -- sometimes called the "Pinocchio Lizard" for its long, protruding nose -- was extinct. But it turns out this is a tall tale.
Scientists re-discovered the lizard in 2005, living elusively at the tops of tall trees in the cloud forests of Ecuador -- the only place in the world that it is known to exist.
A team led by a Virginia Tech scientist recently uncovered new information about the role that the lizard's long nose plays. Only the males have long noses, and they appear to be used in social ...
HANOVER, N.H. - The placenta can be used to reliably measure arsenic exposure in pregnant women and how much of the toxic metal is transferred to their fetuses, a Dartmouth College study shows.
The study, the largest ever analysis of household drinking water arsenic and the mother-to-fetus connection, appears in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. A PDF is available on request.
Recent studies have used the placenta to identify early effects of exposure to lead, mercury, cadmium and other metals. Previous studies also have shown that arsenic ...
Up to 60% of persons living with HIV (PLHA) in the U.S. are neither taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) nor well engaged in HIV primary care, with racial/ethnic minorities more likely to experience barriers to engagement along this HIV continuum of care than their White counterparts. In fact, only 30% of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) in the United States have achieved "viral suppression," the ultimate goal of HIV treatment. Indeed, PLHA poorly engaged in HIV primary care and/or who are not on ART are at elevated risk for a host of poor outcomes, including more frequent ...
The age to receive full Social Security benefits should be closer to 70, according to a report published in the journal Daedalus.
"We're living longer and healthier than ever before, but the statutory age of retirement for receiving Social Security benefits doesn't reflect that," says lead author S. Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology in the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
When Social Security was enacted in 1935, the age of full retirement was set at 65. Back then, a 25-year-old had a 62.4 percent chance of living to retirement age, and ...
People over 60 are at higher risk of being diagnosed with lung or bowel cancer as an emergency in hospital than younger people, according to a Cancer Research UK-supported report *, published today by BMJ Open (Thursday).
The researchers also found that women and less affluent people are at higher risk of an emergency lung cancer diagnosis. While being unmarried, divorced or widowed was associated with having bowel cancer diagnosed as an emergency.
The Cancer Research UK review looked at over 20 studies featuring more than 687,000 lung or bowel cancer cases, of which ...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In the first three years after Massachusetts implemented its 2006 health care reform, which reduced the number of uninsured people in the state by roughly half, the rate of preventable hospitalizations did not decline compared with states with similar populations that did not expand health insurance coverage. Nor did the reform reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the rate of such hospitalizations.
Those are some of the chief findings of a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Boston University School of Medicine, published today ...
While testosterone replacement therapies may be controversial in males, new research in The FASEB Journal may extend this controversy to females too. That's because research involving mice, appearing in the April 2015 issue, suggests that there is an association between low levels of androgens (which includes testosterone), and atherosclerosis and obesity in females.
"We hope that our study will contribute to intensified research efforts on the definition of androgen deficiency in women (e.g. which levels of androgens in the blood should be considered too low?), the ...
