Invited Speech: Optical Fiber Probes Combined with Bioreceptors for Nano and Micro Plastics Detection

The pervasive presence of nano- and microplastics in aquatic environments poses a significant threat to ecosystems and human health. Traditional detection methods often fall short in sensitivity and specificity, necessitating the development of more advanced monitoring technologies. The application of fiber optic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors enhanced with a bioreceptor-based recognition layer can represent an added value to traditional sensing methods. This configuration was used in two different sensitive approaches: at first, a bioreceptor-coupled with a high sensitive probe was developed in order to encompass the expected environmental loads, and then, the bioreceptor-based recognition layer combined with a plastic optical fiber (POF)- SPR and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) was used to identify the kind of plastic particles in terms of materials, size and concentration. The results demonstrate that the use of SPR offers a good possibility for simple and rather economical monitoring aimed at expanding knowledge regarding the spread of the problem of pollution from micrometric and submicrometric particles