Sensing of nanotoxic material using resonance frequency

Sungsoo Na, Kuewhan Jang, Junseok You and Chanho Park

Sensing of nanotoxic material using resonance frequency

Sungsoo Na, Kuewhan Jang, Junseok You and Chanho Park

Korea University, Korea

: J Electr Eng Electron Technol

Abstract

Sensing of nanotoxic materials is strongly important, as their engineering applications are growing recently and results in that they can harmfully influence human health and environment. In current study we report the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)-based, in situ and real-time sensing of silver nanotoxic-material by frequency shift. We propose the ultra-sensitive in situ detection of silver ions by using QCM functionalized with a silver-specific DNA. Since the mass of an ion is comparable to that of an atom, the mass change caused by ion binding to DNA on the quartz electrode is so small that it is practically difficult to detect the ions at low concentrations. In our study, we used Ag+ ions and single cytosine from the DNA to form the cytosineAg+-cytosine complex. The advantage of using single cytosine is the mass amplification, facilitating the sensitive detection of Ag+ ions. The results suggest that QCM-based detection opens a new avenue for the development of a practical water-testing sensor.