Electrochemical Biosensors in Food Safety: Challenges and Perspectives

Abstract

Safety and quality are key issues for the food industry. Consequently, there is growing demand to preserve the food chain and products against substances toxic, harmful to human health, such as contaminants, allergens, toxins, or pathogens. For this reason, it is mandatory to develop highly sensitive, reliable, rapid, and cost-effective sensing systems/devices, such as electrochemical sensors/biosensors. Generally, conventional techniques are limited by long analyses, expensive and complex procedures, and skilled personnel. Therefore, developing performant electrochemical biosensors can significantly support the screening of food chains and products. Here, we report some of the recent developments in this area and analyze the contributions produced by electrochemical biosensors in food screening and their challenges.

Electrochemical Cell-Based Sensor for Detection of Food Hazards

“…Although cell-based electrochemical sensors have demonstrated great progress and have shown broad application prospects in the field of food, they still face some problems that affect their development [ 71 ]. Some of these major problems are further discussed.…”

Recent Advances in Electrochemical Chitosan-Based Chemosensors and Biosensors: Applications in Food Safety

“…Food safety is a central question to tackle for the food industry, because contaminants, bacteria, toxins, etc. can be developed and appear at each of the different stages in the food production chain for many reasons, e.g., unexpected reactions, degradation, and incorrect storage [1,2].…”

“…Moreover, food quality is essential for food industries and consumers, because such a process includes the screening of food contaminants/additives and the analysis of food composition/ingredients [2]. Consequently, the regulatory agencies around the world, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), have legislated by imposing strict rules on the maximum levels of contaminants and additives in foodstuffs for guaranteeing consumer protection and mainly human health [3,4].…”

“…Consequently, the regulatory agencies around the world, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), have legislated by imposing strict rules on the maximum levels of contaminants and additives in foodstuffs for guaranteeing consumer protection and mainly human health [3,4]. Generally, food analysis is carried out on the final food product using different well-known techniques, either individually or in combination, such as chromatography, mass spectrometry, and UV-Vis spectroscopy [2]. These traditional approaches have several limitations.…”

Biosensing Membrane Base on Ferulic Acid and Glucose Oxidase for an Amperometric Glucose Biosensor

“…In the biomedical industry, glucose biosensors are used as an important tool to monitor glucose in biological fluids allowing better management of diabetes, a pathology that is estimated to affect 7.7% of the population by 2030 [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. In the food industry, glucose is also a target analyte in the production process [ 4 , 5 ]. Therefore, glucose biosensors development is a major goal of different research groups; the emphasis is on improving the analytical parameters of the existing biosensors, such as linearity covering low and high glucose concentrations and making their fabrication simple, portable, with a rapid and accurate response [ 1 , 2 , 3 ].…”