A review of methods for the detection of pathogenic microorganisms.

The testing and rapid detection of pathogenic organisms is a crucial protocol in the prevention and identification of crises related to health, safety and wellbeing. Pathogen detection has become one of the most challenging aspects in the food and water industries, because of the rapid spread of waterborne and foodborne diseases in the community and at significant costs. With the prospect of inevitable population growth, and an influx of tourism to certain water bodies testing will become a requirement to control and prevent possible outbreaks of potentially fatal illnesses. The legislation is already particularly rigorous in the food industry, where failure to detect pathogenic materials represents a catastrophic event, particularly for the elderly, very young or immune-compromised population types. In spite of the need and requirement for rapid analytical testing, conventional and standard bacterial detection assays may take up to seven days to yield a result. Given the advent of new technologies, biosensors, chemical knowledge and miniaturisation of instrumentation this timescale is not acceptable. This review presents an opportunity to fill a knowledge gap for an extremely important research area; discussing the main techniques, biology, chemistry, miniaturisation, sensing and the emerging state-of-the-art research and developments for detection of pathogens in food, water, blood and faecal samples.

Graphene, electrospun membranes and granular activated carbon for eliminating heavy metals, pesticides and bacteria in water and wastewater treatment processes.

Access to safe water has a significant impact on all parts of society, its growth and sustainability, both politically and socioeconomically. Consequently, the preservation of water and wastewater treatment have become a global challenge. A major contributor to water pollution is improperly or untreated industrial emissions; water resources can be contaminated with harmful pollutants, toxins or pathogenic microorganisms. Carbon's unique chemistry and its evolution due to recent advances in carbon-based technologies such as nanomaterials, offer significant potential for a variety of water purification strategies. This work details the application of carbon materials in combination with nanotechnology in the form of graphene, graphene composites, electrospun membranes and improved activated carbon in a myriad of water treatment systems with an emphasis on the removal of heavy metals, pesticides and harmful bacteria.