A great improvement in food safety and quality controls worldwide has been achieved through the development of biosensing platforms. Foodborne pathogens continue to cause serious outbreaks, due to the ingestion of contaminated food. The development of new, sensitive, portable, high-throughput, and automated platforms is a primary objective to allow detection of pathogens and their toxins in foods. Listeria monocytogenes is one common foodborne pathogen. Major outbreaks of listeriosis have been caused by a variety of foods, including milk, soft cheeses, meat, fermented sausages, poultry, seafood and vegetable products. Due to its high sensitivity and easy setup, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has been extensively applied for biosensor fabrication and in particular in the field of microbiology as a mean to detect and quantify foodborne bacteria. Here we describe a miniaturized, portable EIS platform consisting of a microfluidic device with EIS sensors for the detection of L. monocytogenes in milk samples, connected to a portable impedance analyzer for on-field application in clinical and food diagnostics, but also for biosecurity purposes. To achieve this goal microelectrodes were functionalized with antibodies specific for L. monocytogenes. The binding and detection of L. monocytogenes was achieved in the range 2.2 × 10³ cfu/mL to 1 × 10² with a Limit of Detection (LoD) of 5.5 cfu/mL.

Sustainable growth, environmental preservation, and improvement of life quality are strategic fields of worldwide interest and cornerstones of international policies. Humanity health and prosperity are closely related to our present choices on sustainable development. The main sources of pollution concern industry, including mining, chemical companies, and refineries, wastewater treatment; and consumers themselves. In order to guide and evaluate the effects of environmental policies, diffuse monitoring campaigns and detailed (big) data analyses are needed. In this respect, the development and availability of innovative sensor platforms for field analysis and remote sensing are of crucial relevance. In this review, we provide an overview of the area, analyzing the major needs, available technologies, novel approaches, and perspectives. Among environmental pollutants that threaten the biosphere, we focus on inorganic and organic contaminants, which affect air and water quality. We describe the technologies for their assessment in the environment and then draw some conclusions and mention future perspectives opened by the integration of sensing technologies with robotics and the Internet of Things. Without the ambition to be exhaustive in such a rapidly growing field, this review is intended as a support for researchers and stakeholders looking for current, state-of-the-art, and key enabling technologies for environmental monitoring.

Nanoplastics pose significant environmental and public health risks, prompting the need for sensitive, cost-effective, and rapid assays for ecotoxicity assessment. The present work proposes the use of a portable smartphone-based platform to enhance traditional Daphnia magna acute toxicity assays by integrating behavior analysis and heart rate measurements. The aim is to improve sensitivity in detecting toxic effects of nanoplastics. In particular, the study focused on nano-sized carboxylated polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles. Two variability factors that could influence biological effects of nanoplastics, the particle size and the age of the organisms, were considered. Results demonstrated that the application of the proposed integrated approach allowed the detection of early subtle effects such as a significant impact on the heart rate and behavior of Daphnia magna under short-term exposure to PS carboxylated nanoparticles. In particular, a stimulation of heart rate was observed for both neonates and adults either for 40 nm or 200 nm particles after 48 h exposure, presumably attributable to an interference of carboxylated PS NPs with adrenergic-type receptors. Behavioral alterations were detectable for 40 nm particles but not for 200 nm ones consisting of a decrease in velocity and alterations of trajectories. Obtained results demonstrated the suitability of the proposed smartphone platform for friendly and real-time integration of behavioral analysis with physiological outcome measurements during acute exposure of Daphnia magna to nano-sized carboxylated PS NPs, expanding the sensitivity of the traditional acute toxicity tests. It offers a novel, cost-effective, and field-applicable method for environmental monitoring of nanoparticle toxicity and impact.