Ultrasensitive monitoring of VOCs and pathogens by spectroscopy

The current challenge, as identified by the guidelines of the European Commission, is to protect the earth's environment and to improve and preserve the quality of life of its inhabitants, through targeted actions and sustainable choices. Such a global task can only be achieved through scientific contributions from all areas of knowledge, aimed at combating climate change, protecting health and promoting human well-being. Among them, air-quality represents an interesting aspect and one of the important problem for public health.

Actually, validated methods for measuring exposure to chemical and biological agents use static samplers and analytical techniques that provide an off-line and time-averaged response. For the biological component, passive sampling is used, based on the pathogen ability to proliferate in a culture medium for a few days, to inoculate it in reference cell cultures, or in the case of viral agents in the detection of specific antibodies, or by genetic amplification. In any case, post-evaluations are sometimes time-consuming and insensitive.

The existing direct reading instruments hardly meet the requirements for the evaluation and prevention of exposure to dangerous bioaerosol and atmosphere pollutants. 

These limitations have been and still are a stimulus to search complementary and/or competitive solutions. In fact, the advances in material sciences and in nanotechnology, combined with the large use of automatic recognition algorithms, offer the advantages due to the miniaturization of sensing devices, leading to rapid, portable, and sensitive diagnostic systems that can detect the air-quality in various workplaces and public spaces.

We are now pleased to announce the workshop DEUPAS "Ultrasensitive monitoring of VOCs and pathogens by spectroscopy - Innovative solutions and sensor systems for air-quality monitoring'', which will be held on July 4th-5th, 2023, in Frascati at INFN - National Laboratories. Here, the results of the project DEUPAS will be presented. 

In these two days, we will take stock of the criticalities and will discuss potential innovative solutions and technological  advances in environmental monitoring, spanning from air-quality to environmental pollution. Researchers and experts will share their results and will compare with the Authority demands and the industrial reality of the territory.

Keywords: air-quality, environmental pollution, pathogens, aerosol, particulate matter, metal organic framework, colloidal systems, thermosensitive microgels, nanomaterials, chemoresistive gas sensor, IR/THz spectroscopy, ghost spectroscopy, nanomaterials, photonics, electronics, machine learning, density functional theory.