A novel thermal biosensor based on enzyme reaction for pesticides measurement

Article type: Research Article

Authors: ZHENG, Yi-hua^; | HUA, Tse-chao | XU, Fei

Affiliations: Institute of Food Science and Engineering, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China | College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: tchua@sh163.net

Abstract: A novel thermal biosensor based on enzyme reaction for pesticides detection has been developed. This biosensor is a flow injection analysis system and consists of two channels with enzyme reaction column and identical reference column, which is set for eliminating the unspecific heat. The enzyme reaction takes place in the enzyme reaction column at a constant temperature (40°C) realized by a thermoelectric thermostat. Thermosensor based on the thermoelectric module containing 127 serial BiTe-thermocouples is used to monitor the temperature difference between two effluents from enzyme reaction column and reference column. The ability of this biosensor to detect pesticides is demonstrated by the decreased degree of the hydrolytic heat in two types of thermosensor mode. The hydrolytic reaction is inhibited by 36% at 1 mg/L DDVP and 50% at 10 mg/L DDVP when cell-typed thermosensor is used. The percent inhibition is 30% at 1 mg/L DDVP and 42% at 10 mg/L DDVP in tube-typed thermosensor mode. The detection for real sample shows that this biosensor can be used for detection of organophosphate pesticides residue.

Keywords: thermal biosensor, pesticides residue, thermoelectric module, flow injection analysis (FIA)

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 615-619, 2005