Biomimetic sensors for toxic pesticides and inorganics based on optoelectronic / electrochemical trasducers: An overview

Abstract

Toxic pesticides and heavy metals constitute an important class of pollutants that degrade the environment due to their persistent nature and their unavoidable use in increasing the agricultural output and industrial importance respectively. The design and development of portable devices such as sensors rather than laboratory based instruments in monitoring the above species at trace levels in real samples is prime challenge to analytical chemists at this juncture. Because of the poor physical and chemical stability of biosensors despite their specificity and sensitivity preclude their use in environmental analysis. On the other hand, in conventional chemical sensors are beset with problems of selectivity. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are being increasingly used as recognition elements in mimicking molecular/ionic recognition by natural receptors. A brief survey of synthetic strategies and characterization of MIPs, transducers that convert binding event into a detectable signal, integration strategies of recognition element with a suitable transducer and finally the reported sensors for toxic pesticides and inorganics is discussed. Future outlook of such biomimetic sensors in environmental analysis has been highlighted.