FeS

A high-performance microbial biosensor was fabricated with a reasonably designed biofilm substrate, where the aerogel of carbonized Luffa cylindrica (LC) was used as the scaffold for loading biofilm and FeS2 nanoparticles (FeS2NPs) were employed to modify this aerogel (FeS2NPs/GelLC). The fabricated FeS2NPs/GelLC exhibited a spring-like structure similar with that of the raw LC, which facilitated the linkage of the scaffold and promoted its mechanical strength, and further prolonged the service period of the as-prepared biosensor from few days to two months. Meanwhile, the introduced FeS2NPs improved the microbial electron transfer of the biofilm and causing an increase in the sensor's signals from 155.0 ± 2.6 to 352.0 ± 17.1 nA and a decrease in the detection limit from 0.95 to 0.38 mg O L-1 (S/N = 3) for the detection of glucose-glutamic acid (GGA). More important, the FeS2NPs had been demonstrated to have the capability for modulating a persistent shift of the microbial community with organic pollutant biodegradability. Compared with the GelLC, the FeS2NPs/GelLC exhibited a promising performance for measuring the synthetic sewage and real water samples in BOD assay and an increasing inhibition-ratio for detecting 3,5-dichlorophenol (DCP) in toxicity assay. Based on the vast resource and renewability of LC, this work pave a new avenue for developing high-performance microbial biosensors that are expected to be the engineering production.