Issue 2, 2023

Environmental routes of virus transmission and the application of nanomaterial-based sensors for virus detection

Abstract

Many outbreaks of emerging disease (e.g., avian influenza, SARS, MERS, Ebola, COVID-19) are caused by viruses. In addition to direct person-to-person transfer, the movement of these viruses through environmental matrices (water, air, and food) can further disease transmission. There is a pressing need for rapid and sensitive virus detection in environmental matrices. Nanomaterial-based sensors (nanosensors), which take advantage of the unique optical, electrical, or magnetic properties of nanomaterials, exhibit significant potential for environmental virus detection. Interactions between viruses and nanomaterials (or recognition agents on the nanomaterials) can induce detectable signals and provide rapid response times, high sensitivity, and high specificity. Facile and field-deployable operations can be envisioned due to the small size of the sensing elements. In this frontier review, we summarize virus transmission via environmental pathways and then comprehensively discuss recent applications of nanosensors to detect various viruses. This review provides guidelines for virus detection in the environment through the use of nanosensors as a tool to decrease environmental transmission of current and emerging diseases.

Graphical abstract: Environmental routes of virus transmission and the application of nanomaterial-based sensors for virus detection

Article information

Article type
Critical Review
Submitted
21 Jūn. 2022
Accepted
18 Nov. 2022
First published
21 Nov. 2022

Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2023,10, 393-423

Author version available

Environmental routes of virus transmission and the application of nanomaterial-based sensors for virus detection

W. Wang, S. Kang, W. Zhou and P. J. Vikesland, Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2023, 10, 393 DOI: 10.1039/D2EN00600F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements