Nanostructured bioarchitectures for electrochemical and optical biosensor applications : design of a biocathode for biofuel cells

Overview & Synopsis

The advancing field of medicine and environmental analysis demands sensitive and accurate methods for sensing harmful organic molecules The research work in this thesis presents a novel affinity system for immobilization of bioreceptors, a novel signal amplification strategy, and novel nanomaterials based bio-designs (architectures) with the improved biosensor or bio-fuel cell (bio-cathode) performances.Firstly, a new affinity system based on supramolecular host-guest interactions between biotin and & beta-CD with an association constant of 3 x 10² M-1 is studied. This allows immobilization of a variety of commercially available biotin labelled bioreceptors for biosensing application. beta-CD modified Au-NPs were successfully applied as optical antenna for additional SPRi signal amplification using QD labels. The beneficial effect of the combination of these nano-objects enables the construction of highly sensitive DNA or immunosensors.Secondly, various kinds of nanomaterials such as nanodiamonds, carbon nanotubes, magnetic nanoparticles, graphene and are employed to modify transducer surface followed by non-covalent functionalization with pyrene derivatives. The novel 3D layer-by-layer deposition of nanotubes and different sized nanoparticles with varying porosity presents a flexible approach towards construction of enzymatic or immuno-sensors. Graphene, a material with atomic thickness doubles the SPR sensitivity towards detection of antibody, anti-CT. Finally, an efficient bioelectrocatalytic reduction of oxygen is reported using pyrene functionalized CNT forest as a bio-cathode for bio-fuel cell applications.