Contaminant Detection: Optical Reading of Contaminants in Aqueous Media Based on Gold Nanoparticles (Small 17/2014)

Water pollution is a serious global issue for public health and environmental safety. To ensure safe water supply, a rapid, specific, low-cost, and robust platform is needed for monitoring contaminants in aqueous media. On page 3461, X. Peng, X. Chen, and co-workers summarize the recent efforts to design and apply gold nanoparticle-based optical assays, in the form of colorimetric, scattering, and fluorescence detection, for detecting contaminants in water with high performance.