Advanced nanostructures for microbial contaminants detection by means of spectroscopic methods

Abstract Microbial contaminants represented by harmful bacteria and viruses are dangerous to human health and outbreaks of diseases caused by the consumption of food and water contaminated with such pollutants have drastically increased in recent years. In order to prevent disease outbreaks, there is an urgent need to develop cost-effective strategies with fast response time and high portability for real-time detection, identification, and monitorization of microbial contaminants. Spectroscopic techniques provide opportunities for such applications as they enable the selective detection of extremely low quantities of pathogenic contaminants in various environmental samples such as food, soil, drinking water, wastewater, aquatic ecosystems, etc. In this chapter, we review some recent progress related to analysis and monitoring of microbial pollutants by Raman spectroscopy, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA), fluorescence spectroscopy, localized surface plasmon resonance, and impedance spectroscopy. In particular, we highlight the advances in the fabrication of innovative nanostructured metallic platforms for ultrasensitive and selective detection of pathogens and simultaneous identification and discrimination of multiple contaminants in environmental samples.