Deposition method of gold nanoparticles for colorimetric biosensor usage in sports activities

• Main Author: Lammy, Alice Venecia
• Other Authors: Terry W.J. Steele
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials::Biomaterials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/62365
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Dehydration and over-hydration are two common types of hydration imbalances which happen in sport activities such as marathon. Devices that are currently available to monitor the hydration levels are complicated and not able to provide direct feedback. Therefore, having the real-time instrument to monitor the hydration levels is indeed useful for athletes. The difference in concentration of sodium in human sweat has been used to detect the hydration levels and gold nanoparticles have been proven to be able to differentiate the concentration between dehydration, normal and over-hydration by emitting three different colors in the solution form. In order to develop a user-friendly patch sensor, the deposition method of gold nanoparticles solution into solid form while maintaining its stability is needed. The results show that freeze-drying method commonly used to preserve the stability of nanoparticles for longer shelf-life is able to show color change with different concentrations of sodium to differentiate between three human conditions which are dehydration, normal condition, and over-hydration.