Nanomaterials-based electrochemical detection of chemical contaminants

Abstract

Owing to the high toxicity and detrimental effects of chemical contaminants to human health and the environment, public concerns over chemical contaminants in the environment and in foods have been mounting drastically. It is therefore significant to monitor contaminants via portable sensing devices, which encompass the demands of being low-cost and the potential for online environmental monitoring and food safety applications. This review will assess various concepts and recent advancements in design and the application of state-of-the-art nanomaterials through the incorporation of carbon nanomaterials, metallic and metallic oxide nanoparticles, titanium dioxide nanotubes, and dendrimers toward the development of electrochemical sensors for the detection of chemical contaminants in the environment and in foods. The development of nanomaterials based sensors facilitated by recent advances is having a major impact on sensor industries for environmental and food safety monitoring.Electrochemical sensing strategies have spurred intense interest in the research community as they have the capacity to serve as ideal sensor technology candidates, having such features as rapid response, robustness, high sensitivity and selectivity, low cost, miniaturization, and the potential for real-time monitoring. Nanomaterials have strong potential for increasing the competitiveness of new sensors for environmental monitoring and food safety applications through the combination of efficacious, yet simple fabrication techniques in the development of critical nanometric interfaces, and the optimization of their design and performance. Opportunities and future considerations for the use of nanomaterials in electrochemical sensors for producing advanced environmental and food sensing devices will also be addressed.

High quality Pt–graphene nanocomposites for efficient electrocatalytic nitrite sensing

“…Among these noble metal nanoparticles, metallic Pt nanoclusters have been attracted extensive attention owing to their extraordinary electrocatalytic activities [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. For example, Miao et al [23] used functionalization of Pt nanoparticles (Pt NPs) for electrochemical detection of nitrite, a detection limit as high as 5 M with a sensitivity of 26.7 A mM −1 was obtained.…”

“…Noble metal nanoparticles, due to the high specific surface area, high surface-to-volume ratio, extremely small size and unique physicochemical characteristics, were acted as promising electrocatalyst for electrochemical sensing [18][19][20]. Among these noble metal nanoparticles, metallic Pt nanoclusters have been attracted extensive attention owing to their extraordinary electrocatalytic activities [18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Dual mechanism-based sensing of mercury using unmodified, heteroepitaxially synthesized silver nanoparticles

“…is still a major pursuit. Recent advances in the field of nanotechnology have resulted in the development of a wide range of optical and electrochemical sensors for mercury detection (Govindhan et al 2014;Ding et al 2016;Alex et al 2016;Mao et al 2015;Cui et al 2015;Sun et al 2016). These have shown many favorable advantages over the conventional tools, including low cost of analysis, shorter analysis time, field deployability, high specificity, and ultra-sensitivity.…”

Electrochemical devices for the detection of priority pollutants listed in the EU water framework directive

“…As mentioned above for the direct electrochemical detection of pesticides, nanotechnology has allowed the construction of new bioelectrochemical interfaces with improved stability of the immobilized bioreceptor, faster electronic transfer rates and overall enhanced analytical performance [52,53]. Also, a variety of electrochemical techniques have been explored in the development of pesticide biosensor approaches, including differential pulse voltammetry, square-wave voltammetry, amperometry, potentiometry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy .…”