Silvia Tamborino

Measuring indoor radon concentrations is essential for ensuring good air quality in buildings and protecting public health, but significant regulatory and methodological fragmentation still exists at the international level. This study analysed scientific articles published in the last five years, aiming to critically map the technical choices adopted in measuring radon in different indoor environments. The results show that regulatory fragmentation continues to generate inconsistent practices with regard to measurement protocols, sampling durations, devices used, and normative references used to interpret the results. In many cases, the protocols cannot be readily classified according to major technical standards as specific interpretation criteria are required, such as the sampling frequency and the overall duration of the strategy. These results highlight the importance of standardising measurement methods in order to improve the accuracy of exposure assessments and enable comparisons between studies.

Carbon dots (CDs) derived from renewable biomass are emerging as sustainable alternatives to traditional nanomaterials for applications in bioimaging, sensing, and photonics. In this study, we reported a one-step synthesis of photoluminescent CDs from Laurus nobilis leaves particularly spread in the Mediterranean area. The resulting nanoparticles (NPs) exhibited average diameters of 3–5 nm and high colloidal stability in water. Structural analysis by X-Rays Diffraction revealed the presence of amorphous graphitic domains, while infrared spectroscopy confirmed oxygenated functional groups on the CD surface. Spectrofluorimetric analysis showed excitation-dependent blue–green emission with a maximum at 490 nm that can be applied also as label agents for cells. The environmental sustainability of the synthetic procedure was evaluated through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), highlighting that the current impacts were primarily associated with electricity consumption, due to the laboratory-scale nature of the process. These impacts are expected to decrease significantly with future scale-up and process optimization.

Carbon dots (CDs) derived from renewable biomass are emerging as sustainable alternatives to traditional nanomaterials for applications in bioimaging, sensing, and photonics. In this study, we report a one-step hydrothermal synthesis of photoluminescent CDs from Laurus nobilis leaves particularly spread in the Mediterranean area. The resulting nanoparticles exhibited average diameters of 3–5 nm and high colloidal stability in water. Structural analysis by XRD revealed the presence of amorphous graphitic domains, while FTIR spectroscopy confirmed oxygenated functional groups on the CD surface. Spectrofluorimetric analysis showed excitation-dependent blue–green emission with a maximum at 490 nm that can be applied also as label agents for cells. The environmental sustainability of the synthesis was evaluated through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), highlighting that the current impacts are primarily associated with electricity consumption, due to the laboratory-scale nature of the process. These impacts are expected to decrease significantly with future scale-up and process optimization.