EPSRC DLA: Nanodiamond for virus detection

About the Project

At least 1 billion people lack access to safe water due to rapid population growth, urbanization, industrialisation and the climate emergency. One of the biggest challenges to water purification is the removal of harmful nanoscale contaminants such as viruses and industrial contaminants such as dyes and pharmaceutical by-products. Of the existing filtration platforms, only nanofiltration or reverse osmosis can achieve high retention levels of such nanoscale pathogens. These systems are expensive and complex, being mostly limited to centralised water treatment systems.

Fortunately, viruses have a net negative charge in water and can be captured by positively charged surfaces. A key advantage of this approach is that retention is not achieved through size exclusion, allowing much higher flow rates and smaller pressure differentials. Nanodiamond exhibits one of the strongest net positive charges in solution and we have recently shown 99.9999% removal of viruses from water with nanodiamond coated quartz filters, an approach that has recently been patented by Cardiff University.

This project will explore using nanodiamond-coated quartz microfiber membranes to concentrate viruses from water samples for subsequent detection. This will (a) enhance speed and sensitivity in detecting specific viruses, focusing on noroviruses for which nanobodies have already been developed, and (b) assess the potential of this approach for real-time, rapid, and highly sensitive virus detection in water and wastewater. The student will join a multidisciplinary team and learn the materials science behind virus capture as well as real world virus detection strategies.