Project PI: Dr. Nader Shehata
Project Team: Eng. Ayman Moussa, and Eng. Soha Hesham
Research area: Nanotechnology

Abstract

This project aims to design a multi-purpose optical nano-sensor for detecting the dissolved oxygen and free radicals in water, based on optical fluorescence quenching technique. The detection of dissolved oxygen is important in measuring the water pollution level. The very low or extreme high concentrations of dissolved oxygen can have bad impact on fish resources and other aquatic organisms. Also, oxygen detection is needed in biomedical applications such as surgical operations of tumors removal. The free radicals detection is urgently needed in agriculture for plants’ cell longevity studies and in biomedicine through cancerous cells detection.

In this project, the concentrations of dissolved oxygen and/or free radicals can be detected through measuring the intensity of visible emission under UV or IR excitations. Expected outcomes of this project include:

1- Offering a multi-function optical sensor.
2- More economic, sustainable, and sensitive sensor compared to other sensor types.
3- This sensor can be used in multi-purpose within different applications; water purification, environmental monitoring, industrial process control, agriculture and biomedical applications.