A New 3D-Printed Sensor Can Detect Glyphosate in Drinks

A recently developed, cheap sensing unit can spot and accurately measure the amount of the commonly used and contentious herbicide glyphosate in droplets of fluid in a lab examination.

Washington State University (WSU) and DL ADV-Tech engineers developed the sensor device, which makes use of nano-sized tubes and tested it on samplings of orange juice and rice drinks that they contaminated with the herbicide for the research study. The glyphosate sensor utilizes technology similar to that used in glucose tests that can quickly determine blood sugar levels from a tiny amount of blood.

The ultimate goal for this sensor is: to test human samples for observing glyphosate exposure. However, researchers first showed the sensor’s potential for screening beverages in the research study released in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

“We began to developing this sensor for health surveillance; however, it additionally can be used for food safety and also environmental monitoring,” said Yuehe Lin, professor in WSU’s College of Mechanical and Materials Design and also the study’s corresponding author. “We made it to be mobile and used 3D-printing to make it tiny and compact, to make sure that it can be used in the lab, in the field, or anywhere.”

Before this novel development, methods of detecting and measuring herbicides like glyphosate often depend on the precise preparation of samples and costly scientific equipment like mass spectrometers. Other techniques include using organic antibodies to attract and bind the herbicide molecules, which is likewise expensive with materials that need to be meticulously saved to avoid the decomposition of the natural components.

The sensor created by the study team utilizes electrically conducting polymer nanotubes inscribed with molecule-sized cavities that can bind glyphosate molecules, essentially resembling the biological antibodies. These nanotubes are coated on a 3D-printed sensor device that utilizes an electrical current to estimate the glyphosate concentration. Because it uses an artificial antibody in place of a biological one, the sensor does not need unique storage, and the sensing materials are relatively cost-effective.

The scientists tested the sensor on samples of orange juice and rice drinks that they contaminated with recognized levels of glyphosate. They discovered that the sensor could detect the herbicide with high sensitivity and specificity.

“For the next action, we want to utilize the sensor to find glyphosate in some human samples such as blood, saliva, or urine,” said Shichao Ding, a WSU doctoral candidate in Lin’s lab and very first author on the paper. “We will further develop some brand-new nanomaterials to boost its sensing performance.”

Glyphosate has been approved for usage by numerous regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which released a statement in 2020 that it is safe for use at advised levels. However, some teams and studies are concerned about glyphosate’s health and environmental threats. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified it as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Originally published on Lab Manager. Read the original article.

Reference: Shichao Ding et al, Molecularly imprinted polypyrrole nanotubes based electrochemical sensor for glyphosate detection, Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2021.113434