Doctoral themes 2023

Advancing electrochemical sensors using Deep Eutectic Solvents for greener environmental applications  

Supervisors

Isabel Marrucho, isabel.marrucho@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Carlos Monteiro, carlos.e.monteiro@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Registration Institution

Instituto Superior Técnico

Project description

Contamination of both terrestrial and aquatic environments demand robust analytical techniques for their regulatory and investigative monitoring. However, pre-treatment and analysis of samples often require dangerous materials and reagents, which need to be tackled in a greener fashion. This doctoral project aims at investigating safer and cost-effective Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES) to improve analytical methodologies towards environmental and health analysis, of both inorganic and organic contaminants, overcoming limitations from inadequate limits of detection (LOD) and interferences. The development of DES is emerging in this field of research as a promising and innovative strategy to tackle novel electrochemical sensors, interfaces and media. Therefore, DES design and optimization procedures will be carried out considering their density, viscosity, conductivity, thermal and chemical stability, acidity, and hidrophilicity/hidrophobicity features towards the efficiency of contaminant selectivity, separation, extraction, and pre-concentration before analysis, combining DES microextraction with intensification techniques for new electroanalytical solutions.

The strategy encompasses using model solutions, reference materials and the real environmental samples (road dust, soils, sediments, waters and organisms) with the best DES configuration designed for increasing sensitivity and accuracy of analytical determinations, concurrently to the assessment and elimination of interferences. Validation of improved voltammetric procedures seeking miniaturization for field applications will be sought, paving the way to new insight on contaminant speciation analysis and a better knowledge of their environmental biogeochemistry, cycling, fate, and hazardousness towards organisms.

Keywords

Analytical improvements

Environmental analysis

Contaminants

Green Analytical Chemistry