A “Living Sensor” Based on Sansevieria Plant for Measurement of UV-A Radiation

Abstract

This research activity concerns the development of a sensor based on Sansevieria plants to measure UV-A radiation. The proposed approach is based on soils and plants together with the metabolic processes and bacterial activities involved in such organisms. This generation of devices aims to overcome silicon-based solutions that cause environmental pollution with CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> emissions during manufacturing and issues of non-biodegradability and toxicity at the dissemination or end of life phases. The sensor here studied and characterized presents no CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> emissions during the production, considering the absence of manufacture and foundries processes, and it is also capable to meet the zero-CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> condition by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide already present in the environment through natural photosynthetic processes. The living sensor based on the Sansevieria and its working principle is studied for the first time in literature, together with the analysis of radiation in the bandwidth of 350-400 nm, the metrological characterization, the features and influences analysis. The results highlight the suitability of the Sansevieria as a self-generating, battery-less sensor based on the metabolic processes in the living system, soil and plant, as a function of the measurand. It is worth noting that the approach followed here has the prerogative of being simple, low-cost, non-toxic, biodegradable, environmentally friendly, and mimetic with a perspective of achieving a huge jump in the development of green measuring systems.