Current Search:   Rahman, Sharmily (x)

View All Items

  • CSV Spreadsheet
(1 - 2 of 2)
DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOSENSOR FOR OBJECTIVELY QUANTIFYING ODORANTS
Title
DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOSENSOR FOR OBJECTIVELY QUANTIFYING ODORANTS.
Creator
Rahman, Sharmily, Meeroff, Daniel E., Florida Atlantic University, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Abstract/Description
Nuisance odor levels produced by solid waste management operations are subject to regulatory standards due to their impacts on the quality of life of the residents living nearby the facility. Failure to meet regulatory standards may result in fines, litigation, inability to acquire permits, mitigation, and re-siting operations. Since measurement of environmental nuisance odors is currently limited to subjective techniques, monitoring odor levels to meet such standards is often problematic....
Show moreNuisance odor levels produced by solid waste management operations are subject to regulatory standards due to their impacts on the quality of life of the residents living nearby the facility. Failure to meet regulatory standards may result in fines, litigation, inability to acquire permits, mitigation, and re-siting operations. Since measurement of environmental nuisance odors is currently limited to subjective techniques, monitoring odor levels to meet such standards is often problematic. This is becoming more acute as increasing residential populations begin to encroach on properties adjacent to landfills. In order to ensure that nuisance odor issues are minimized, it is necessary to provide an objective measurement. The objective of the current research is to develop a biosensor for providing an objective, standard measurement of odors. The approach is to modify the human odorant binding protein (hOBPIIa), isolated using published biomolecular techniques, by fluorescently tagging it with a chromophore functional group. When this protein is tagged with a fluorophore marker and excited in a spectrofluorometer, it emits light of a certain wavelength that can be detected and quantified. Once odorant molecules are exposed to this complex, they start replacing the fluorophore, and as a result, the emitted light intensity decreases in proportion to the number of odorant molecules. Since the protein response depends on odorant concentration, following an inverse Beer’s Law relationship, the odorants can be quantified accurately and rapidly using fluorometric measurements. The results establish quantitation ranges for different pure and mixture of odorant gases as well as the amount of gas that can be quantified across various flow rates.
Show less
Date Issued
2020
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013491
Subject Headings
Biosensors, Odors--Measurement, Landfills, Odorant-binding protein, Fluorescence--Measurement
Format
Document (PDF)
DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOSENSOR FOR OBJECTIVELY QUANTIFYING NUISANCE ODORS NEAR LANDFILLS
Title
DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOSENSOR FOR OBJECTIVELY QUANTIFYING NUISANCE ODORS NEAR LANDFILLS.
Creator
Rahman, Sharmily, Meeroff, Daniel E., Florida Atlantic University, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Abstract/Description
Nuisance odors from landfills have more impact than just being an annoyance to nearby residents. With an ever-increasing population, a larger number of communities are located in closer proximity to landfills than ever before. This has brought along with it, more regular conflicts with landfill authorities surrounding the issue of odors, resulting in complaints, lawsuits, fines, and even re-siting operations. The absence of an objective method of quantifying nuisance odors makes the task of...
Show moreNuisance odors from landfills have more impact than just being an annoyance to nearby residents. With an ever-increasing population, a larger number of communities are located in closer proximity to landfills than ever before. This has brought along with it, more regular conflicts with landfill authorities surrounding the issue of odors, resulting in complaints, lawsuits, fines, and even re-siting operations. The absence of an objective method of quantifying nuisance odors makes the task of creating regulations and setting standards even more complicated. The current research focuses on a method to objectively quantify landfill odors. The human odorant binding protein 2A (hOBPIIa) can be produced using published recombinant gene technology and can be used as a biosensor to quantify odorants through spectrofluorometric measurements. The current work is a continuation of the previous work by Rahman (2020). In this work, the spent biosensor after it reacts with an odorant is shown to be regenerated by applying additional fluorophore following La Chateliers’ principle, so that the same batch of protein can be used to run multiple experiments with odorants. An important part of the work miniaturized the earlier version of the experimental setup and incorporates a much more efficient flow-through system. This setup is capable of collecting real-time readings, increasing the overall accuracy and shortening the duration of each set of the experiment. The current work also explores the response of the biosensor with an expanded group of pure odorants, including hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, toluene, formaldehyde, tert-butyl mercaptan, and methyl mercaptan as well as their mixtures, thus expanding the list of odorants tested under this principle. The results show that the protein shows a concentration-dependent response differing on the hydrophobicity of the target compound.
Show less
Date Issued
2022
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014101
Subject Headings
Landfills, Fills (Earthwork), Odors, Biosensors
Format
Document (PDF)