A reusable evanescent wave immunosensor for highly sensitive detection of bisphenol A in water samples.

This paper proposed a compact and portable planar waveguide evanescent wave immunosensor (EWI) for highly sensitive detection of BPA. The incident light is coupled into the planar waveguide chip via a beveled angle through undergoing total internal reflection, where the evanescent wave field forms and excites the binding fluorophore-tagged antibodies on the chip surface. Typical calibration curves obtained for BPA has detection limits of 0.03 µg/L. Linear response for BPA ranged from 0.124 µg/L-9.60 µg/L with 50% inhibition concentration for BPA of 1.09 ± 0.25 µg/L. The regeneration of the planar optical waveguide chip allows the performance of more than 300 assay cycles within an analysis time of about 20 min for each assay cycle. By application of effective pretreatment procedure, the recoveries of BPA in real water samples gave values from 88.3% ± 8.5% to 103.7% ± 3.5%, confirming its application potential in the measurement of BPA in reality.

Simulation and control strategy for the variational influent of WWTP.

With the development of activated sludge model, the simulation software for the design and operation of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) was produced and has been widely used. The dynamic change of the quality and flow of influent are major factors causing the unstable operation of wastewater treatment process. As a basic model, ASM1 model was used for the simulation of activated sludge process, and double exponential model was selected for the simulation of secondary sedimentation tank. The influences of influent change to the aeration tank and secondary sedimentation tank were investigated, and the relationship among influent change, the quality of effluent and the level of sludge blanket in secondary sedimentation tank was established. On the basis of the simulation results, the operation of the WWTP could be adjusted under the dynamic change of the influent. Furthermore, the controlling strategy combined the feed-forward on the influent flow and the feedback on the level of sludge blanket in the secondary sedimentation tank was studied.