Roksana Majewska, Nicola Coppedè, Francesco Gentile, Davide Calestani, Francesco Amato, Andrea Schirato, Marco Villani, Edmondo Battista, Maria Laura Coluccio, Valentina Onesto, E. Di Fabrizio, Mario Cesarelli, Alessandro Alabastri, Onesto, V., Villani, M., Coluccio, M. L., Majewska, R., Alabastri, A., Battista, E., Schirato, A., Calestani, D., Coppedé, N., Cesarelli, M., Amato, F., Di Fabrizio, E., and Gentile, F.
Diatom shells are a natural, theoretically unlimited material composed of silicon dioxide, with regular patterns of pores penetrating through their surface. For their characteristics, diatom shells show promise to be used as low cost, highly efficient drug carriers, sensor devices or other micro-devices. Here, we demonstrate diatom shells functionalized with gold nanoparticles for the harvesting and detection of biological analytes (bovine serum albumin—BSA) and chemical pollutants (mineral oil) in low abundance ranges, for applications in bioengineering, medicine, safety, and pollution monitoring. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s11671-018-2507-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.