Last few decades, viruses are a real menace to human safety. Therefore, the rapid identification of viruses should be one of the best ways to prevent an outbreak and important implications for medical healthcare. The recent outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus which belongs to the single-stranded, positive-strand RNA viruses. The pandemic dimension spread of COVID-19 poses a severe threat to the health and lives of seven billion people worldwide. There is a growing urgency worldwide to establish a point-of-care device for the rapid detection of COVID-19 to prevent subsequent secondary spread. Therefore, the need for sensitive, selective, and rapid diagnostic devices plays a vital role in selecting appropriate treatments and to prevent the epidemics. During the last decade, electrochemical biosensors have emerged as reliable analytical devices and represent a new promising tool for the detection of different pathogenic viruses. This review summarizes the state of the art of different virus detection with currently available electrochemical detection methods. Moreover, this review discusses different fabrication techniques, detection principles, and applications of various virus biosensors. Future research also looks at the use of electrochemical biosensors regarding a potential detection kit for the rapid identification of the COVID-19.

In this work, we have proposed a new formulation of a hybrid nanofertilizer (HNF) for slow and sustainable release of nutrients into soil and water. Urea-modified hydroxyapatite was synthesized, which is a rich source of nitrogen, calcium, and phosphate. Nanoparticles such as copper, iron, and zinc were incorporated into urea-modified hydroxyapatite to increase the efficiency of the proposed fertilizer. Different techniques including powder X-ray powder diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy were used to get insight into the properties, morphology, and structure of the as-prepared fertilizer. The developed HNF was used in a field experiment on the ladies’ finger ( Abelmoschus esculentus ) plant. The slow release of HNF was observed during leaching studies and confirmed the availability of Ca 2+ , PO 4 3– , NO 2– , NO 3– , Cu 2+ , Fe 2+ , and Zn 2+ . Furthermore, the presence of Cu 2+ , Fe 2+ , and Zn 2+ nutrients in ladies’ finger was confirmed by the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) experiment. A considerable increase in the physicochemical properties such as swelling ratio and water absorption and retention capacities of the proposed fertilizer was observed, which makes the fertilizer more attractive and beneficial compared with the commercial fertilizer. The composition of the proposed HNF was functionally valuable for slow and sustainable release of plant nutrients. The dose of prepared HNF applied was 50 mg/week, whereas the commercial fertilizer was applied at a dose of 5 g/week to A. esculentus . The obtained results showed a significant increase of Cu 2+ , Fe 2+ , and Zn 2+ nutrient uptake in A. esculentus as a result of slow release from HNF.

An innovative biosensor with glassy carbon electrodes modified with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate nanocomposites as a host matrix with functionalized gold nanoparticles for the selective and sensitive detection of xanthine.

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