Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water. The device achieves a record limit of detection of lead down to the femtomolar range, which is one million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies.
“With the extremely high sensitivity of our device, we ultimately hope to detect even the presence of one lead ion in a reasonable volume of water,” said Prabhakar Bandaru, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “Lead exposure is a serious health concern, and it has been indicated that a lead concentration at the level of parts per billion in drinking water could lead to pernicious outcomes, such as stunted human growth and development.”
The work is described in a paper published recently in Nano Letters.
Read more at University of California - San Diego
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