GREBOS · Green Borophene Sensing

Air pollution is the biggest environmental health risk according to the EU and, it is responsible of several millions of premature deaths per year worldwide. In consequence, there is a growing demand for novel miniaturized, affordable, and reliable sensing devices able to detect pollutants at trace levels. The environmental monitoring market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.1% to reach USD 17.10 billion by 2025. Within this market, the Air quality monitoring market size was valued at over 3.5B in 2018 and is expected to grow at a 7% CAGR. Noteworthy, through biogeochemical processes (i.e., acid rain) air pollutants released to the atmosphere can create a second pollution mechanism due to deposition in water surfaces, thereby increasing the potential threat to human health.Within this perspective, GREBOS lies in the development of a comprehensive sensing strategy employing innovative tailored functionalised borophene as a versatile nanomaterial for detecting trace levels of pollutants in both, water (SERS substrates) and air (chemoresistors) samples. This nanomaterial is at the forefront of research due to its superior and promising properties. In addition, borophene functionalisation with fluorine and phosphorous via low-energy ion irradiation will be studied for the first time, enabling novel studies about their changes in the electrical properties and surface chemistry. Besides, pollutants as nitrogen oxides and ammonia will be detected in both matrices below the threshold limit values established by the European Commission according to the Directive 2008/50/EC (air quality) and 98/83/EC (quality of the drinking water).