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Optical Trapping-Raman Spectroscopy for Detection of Chemical and Biological Agents in Air
CHUJI WANG, Yukai Ai, Haifa Alali, Gorden Videen, Yong-Le Pan, Mississippi State University
Abstract Number: 470
Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract
Chemical and biological agents (CBAs) and other aerosolized infectious disease are a significant threat to humans, animals, and the environment. Detection, characterization, and identification of aerosolized CBAs in air in low density is a persistent challenge. For a given dangerous and or highly infectious CBA or disease such as the COVID-19 virus, the detection methods which typically depend on hands-on sampling are impractical in reality; thus highly sensitive, chemically selective, and hands-free sampling and detection techniques are needed. We report on an exploratory study on characterization and identification of aerosolized CBA simulants based on the newly developed optical trapping - Raman spectroscopy (OT-RS) technique. OT enables the capture of single aerosolized CBA or simulant particles in air for several minutes or longer, and RS detects and identifies chemical compositions based on molecular fingerprints. The OT-RS also minimizes potential interference from the background. Simultaneously, an integrated imaging system can monitor the single trapped CBA particle in real-time. Results from four surrogates: Bacillus globigii (BG), Yersinia rhodei, MS 2, and Bacillus subtilis (BS), are presented. We show that the four CBA surrogates can be well - classified by using the principle component analysis (PCA) method. The results demonstrate that the OT-RS system can be used for potential detection of aerosolized CBAs in air.