Griffen Hoo

Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Pap, Levente

Area of Concentration

Chemistry

Abstract

Red tide occurs naturally during harmful algae blooms which cause tremendous issues in ecosystems and the economy. Excess nutrients flowing into waters can feed into harmful algae blooms which increase the production of brevetoxins exponentially. Brevetoxin is a common neurotoxin that affects the respiratory systems of animals by activating their sodium channels. Although there are systems that can detect toxins at low concentrations like HPLC-MS and ELISA these are usually: not portable, very costly instruments, and their operation requires skilled labor. To target this issue, attempts were made to take the first steps at fabricating a toxin screening system that can detect brevetoxin at low concentrations using a handheld Raman spectrometer that utilizes surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), in the lab. First, silver nanoparticles were synthesized successfully, then surface modifications were conducted to create a brevetoxin targeted substrate. Secondly, the nanoparticles were tested with brevetoxins which were extracted from algae provided by Mote Marine Research Laboratory. The acquired data confirmed that the series of experimental modifications were successful between the silver nanoparticles and 4-aminothiophenol, although non-covalent interactions were observable between the target analyte and the nanoparticle rather than the expected covalent interactions. In these experiments the limit of detection (LOD) test provided that the LOD concentration for brevetoxin with our 4-ATP complex was 127 ng/mL or 127 ppb, although further studies are required to meet certain requirements such as reproducibility and accuracy. A light stability test was run which suggested that the complex synthesized may only be usable for 60 to 80 days under experimental conditions.

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