Towards a remote portable bio-affinity surface plasmon resonance analyser for environmental steroidal-pollutants

摘要

The widespread presence of chemicals with the capacity to disrupt theendocrine system in both wildlife and humans in our natural environment hasincreasingly become of major concern in the last ten years. Endocrinedisrupting compounds (EDCs) are a group of compounds that pose apotentially dangerous and real threat to the health of both humans and wildlife.These substances can mimic or interfere with the biological pathways ofnatural endogenous signalling chemicals controlling the endocrine system (e.g.sex hormones). Endocrine disrupters are ubiquitous in water. The detection,monitoring and treatment of wastewaters and surface waters for EDCs wouldsignificantly help minimise the environmental burden imposed by these naturaland synthetic compounds. To optimise such processes, an economical, in-situor field-based detection technique for EDCs is required.The research presented in this thesis describes the development of a portablesurface plasmon resonance device for the detection of endocrine disrupters inwastewater and surface waters. The first two result chapters describe theconstruction, development and optimisation of the portable analyser andimmunoassay protocol using anti-estrogenic antibodies. A novel approach forregenerating the SPR sensing surface was achieved by using Persil biologicallaundry liquid (1%). The developed immunoassay showed a working rangebetween 0.2 - 7µg/L for Estrone-3-Gulcuronide (E13G) in buffer. Thedetection of 17beta- Estradiol (E2) in buffer, synthetic wastewater and realwastewater samples was also carried out; the working range was 0.1 - 10µg/L;0.3-7µg/L and 0.1-10µg/L respectively.The second part of the thesis describes the synthesis and protocol developmentof a photo-chromic dye and its application to immuno-sensing systems enroute to a reversible bio-affinity antibody for application to regenerating biosensingsurfaces. This approach was to demonstrate the concept of remoteregeneration of the active sensing surface for a portable optical sensor.