Persona: María Hormigos, Roberto
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0000-0001-8002-3998
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María Hormigos
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Publicación Nanostructured Hybrid BioBots for Beer Brewing(American Chemical Society, 2023-04-12) María Hormigos, Roberto; Mayorga-Martinez, Carmen C.; Kinčl, Tomáš; Pumera, MartinThe brewing industry will amass a revenue above 500 billion euros in 2022, and the market is expected to grow annually. This industrial process is based on a slow sugar fermentation by yeast (commonly Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Herein, we encapsulate yeast cells into a biocompatible alginate (ALG) polymer along Fe3O4 nanoparticles to produce magneto/catalytic nanostructured ALG@yeast-Fe3O4 BioBots. Yeast encapsulated in these biocompatible BioBots keeps their biological activity (growth, reproduction, and catalytic fermentation) essential for brewing. Catalytic fermentation of sugars into CO2 gas caused a continuous oscillatory motion of the BioBots in the solution. This BioBot motion is employed to enhance the beer fermentation process compared to static-free yeast cells. When the process is finished, magnetic actuation of BioBots is employed for their retrieval from the beer samples, which avoids the need of additional filtration steps. All in all, we demonstrate how an industrial process such as beer production can be benefited by miniaturized autonomous magneto/catalytic BioBots.Publicación Microrobots in food science and technology(2025-12-03) María Hormigos, Roberto; Mayorga-Martinez, Carmen C.; Pumera, MartinThe global food supply chain is highly susceptible to spoilage and contamination risks, posing severe health hazards to consumers. This creates the need for preservation and safety-monitoring methods to reduce the exposure of both industries and consumers to these risks. Recent innovations using functional materials to construct nano- and microrobots of different shapes and sizes show substantial improvements in optimizing various food processes. Here we review the benefits of applying autonomous functional microrobotics to food science and technology, focusing on applications in food safety control, preservation and processing. We identify current limitations specific to each application and general constraints that must be overcome to transition from proof of concept to real-world implementation in the food industry.Publicación Magnetic Hydrogel Microrobots as Insecticide Carriers for In Vivo Insect Pest Control in Plants(Wiley, 2022-12-30) María Hormigos, Roberto; Mayorga-Martinez, Carmen C.; Pumera, MartinThe cost of insect pests to human society exceeds USD70 billion per year worldwide in goods, livestock, and healthcare services. Therefore, pesticides are needed to prevent insect damage despite the secondary effects of these chemical agents on non-target organisms. Chemicals encapsulation into carriers is a promising strategy to improve their specificity. Hydrogel-based microrobots show enormous potential as chemical carriers. Herein, hydrogel chitosan magnetic microrobots encapsulating ethyl parathion (EP)-CHI@Fe3O4 are used to efficiently kill mealworm larvae (Tenebrio molitor). The mechanism takes advantage of pH-responsive chitosan degradation at Tenebrio molitor midgut pH to efficiently deliver pesticide into the mealworm intestinal tract in just 2 h. It is observed that under a transversal rotating magnetic field, mealworm populations show higher mortality after 30 min compared to free pesticide. This example of active pesticide carriers based on soft microrobots opens new avenues for microrobots applications in the agrochemical field as active chemical carriers.Publicación Soft Magnetic Microrobots for Photoactive Pollutant Removal(Wiley, 2022-11-21) María Hormigos, Roberto; Mayorga-Martinez, Carmen C.; Pumera, Martin“Soft” robotics based on hydrogels appears as an alternative to the traditional technology of “hard” robotics. Soft microrobots are employed for drug delivery and cell manipulation. This work develops magnetic hydrogel-based microrobots using chitosan (CHI) as the body of the micromotor and Fe3O4 nanoparticles to allow for its magnetic actuation. In addition, ZnO nanoparticles are incorporated inside the CHI body of the microrobot to act as an active component for pollutants photodegradation. CHI@Fe3O4-ZnO microrobots are used for the efficient photodegradation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The high absorption of CHI hydrogel enhances the POP photodegradation, degrading it 75% in just 30 min. The adsorption-degradation and magnetic properties of CHI@Fe3O4-ZnO microrobots are used in five cycles while maintaining up to 60% photodegradation efficiency. The proof-of-concept present in this work represents a simple way to obtain soft microrobots with magnetic actuation and photodegradation functionalities for several water purification applications.Publicación High-throughput Photoactive Magnetic Microrobots for Food Quality Control(Wiley, 2025-03-11) María Hormigos, Roberto; Mayorga-Martinez, Carmen C.; Kim, Jeonghyo; Pumera, MartinEnsuring food quality and safety according to stringent global standards requires analytical procedures that are accurate, cost-effective, and efficient. This present innovative high-throughput microrobots designed for the detection of antioxidants in food samples. These microrobots consist of photocatalytic bismuth subcarbonate anchored on silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles. Upon exposure to UV light, they generate reactive oxygen species via photocatalysis, which oxidize the colorless dye into a green-colored radical cation. The presence of antioxidants inhibits this reaction, allowing for the quantification of antioxidant activity. The magnetic Fe₃O₄/SiO₂ core enables steering of the microrobots using a transverse rotating magnetic field, facilitating automated assays on a custom-designed 3D-printed sensing platform. This results demonstrate that these magneto-photocatalytic microrobots can perform automated, high-throughput assessments of food quality, representing a significant advancement in food analysis technology.