Abstract:
The widespread presence of chemicals with the capacity to disrupt the
endocrine system in both wildlife and humans in our natural environment has
increasingly become of major concern in the last ten years. Endocrine
disrupting compounds (EDCs) are a group of compounds that pose a
potentially dangerous and real threat to the health of both humans and wildlife.
These substances can mimic or interfere with the biological pathways of
natural endogenous signalling chemicals controlling the endocrine system (e.g.
sex hormones). Endocrine disrupters are ubiquitous in water. The detection,
monitoring and treatment of wastewaters and surface waters for EDCs would
significantly help minimise the environmental burden imposed by these natural
and synthetic compounds. To optimise such processes, an economical, in-situ
or field-based detection technique for EDCs is required.
The research presented in this thesis describes the development of a portable
surface plasmon resonance device for the detection of endocrine disrupters in
wastewater and surface waters. The first two result chapters describe the
construction, development and optimisation of the portable analyser and
immunoassay protocol using anti-estrogenic antibodies. A novel approach for
regenerating the SPR sensing surface was achieved by using Persil biological
laundry liquid (1%). The developed immunoassay showed a working range
between 0.2 - 7µg/L for Estrone-3-Gulcuronide (E13G) in buffer. The
detection of 17beta- Estradiol (E2) in buffer, synthetic wastewater and real
wastewater samples was also carried out; the working range was 0.1 - 10µg/L;
0.3-7µg/L and 0.1-10µg/L respectively.
The second part of the thesis describes the synthesis and protocol development
of a photo-chromic dye and its application to immuno-sensing systems en
route to a reversible bio-affinity antibody for application to regenerating biosensing
surfaces. This approach was to demonstrate the concept of remote
regeneration of the active sensing surface for a portable optical sensor.
