Abstract: Provided herein are protective masks made with polymer-based materials and methods of forming the materials. Methods of forming the interlaced polymer-based materials comprise applying adhesive to a substrate, electrospinning a first polymer solution onto the substrate from a first group of spinning electrodes, electrospinning a second polymer solution onto the substrate from a second group of spinning electrodes, and applying hot air to dry the polymer-based materials electrospun from the first polymer solution and the second polymer solution to form the interlaced polymer-based materials.

Abstract: Fast and simple method of detecting the presence of chloramphenicol, a harmful compound if present in food products. The method makes use of a mutant chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) and a fluorophore-linked chloramphenicol in a system where chloramphenicol and the fluorophore-linked chloramphenicol competes for the active site of the mutant CAT. Because the fluorophore-linked chloramphenicol reduces its fluorescence upon binding to the active site and vice versa increases its fluorescence upon being displaced from the active site by the presence of unmodified chloramphenicol in a sample, the increase of fluorescence caused by a testing sample indicates the presence of chloramphenicol.