Recent biosensing developments in environmental security

Abstract

Environmental security is one of the fundamental requirements of our well being. However, it still remains a major global challenge. Therefore, in addition to reducing and/or eliminating the amounts of toxic discharges into the environment, there is need to develop techniques that can detect and monitor these environmental pollutants in a sensitive and selective manner to enable effective remediation. Because of their integrated nature, biosensors are ideal for environmental monitoring and detection as they can be portable and provide selective and sensitive rapid responses in real time. In this review we discuss the main concepts behind the development of biosensors that have most relevant applications in the field of environmental monitoring and detection. We also review and document recent trends and challenges in biosensor research and development particularly in the detection of species of environmental significance such as organophosphate nerve agents, heavy metals, organic contaminants, pathogenic microorganisms and their toxins. Special focus will be given to the trends that have the most promising applications in environmental security. We conclude by highlighting the directions towards which future biosensors research in environmental security sector might proceed.

Selective detection of gold using genetically engineered bacterial reporters

“…Genetically engineered microorganisms emerge as attractive alternatives to conventional analytical methods for detection of toxic compounds in environmental samples (Robbens et al, 2010;van der Meer and Belkin, 2010;Wanekaya et al, 2008). These biosensors harbor a sensing/response unit (in the simplest case, a transcriptional regulator and its controlled promoter) linked to a promoterless reporter gene whose product provides a measurable signal.…”

Biosensors for health applications

“…The enzyme-based sensor was the first generation of biosensors and in the subsequent years a variety of biosensors for other clinically important substances were developed. Therefore, biosensors can be categorized according to the biological recognition element (enzymatic, immuno, DNA and whole-cell biosensors; Spichiger-Keller, 1998) or the signal transduction method (electrochemical, optical, thermal and mass-based biosensors; Wanekaya et al, 2008) (Fig 1). Fig.…”

Effects of Ultrasound on the Degradation of Pentachlorophenol by Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes

“…The determination and degradation of toxic organic compounds in the environment using electrochemical methods have been extensively performed on different electrode materials [1][2][3][4]. However, this kind of studies is strongly prejudiced by adsorption and/or insolubilization of the oxidation and/or reduction products on the electrode surfaces, yielding the irreproducibility of the electroanalytical measurements and a loss in the degradation process efficiency.…”