MXenes for Gas and Biological Sensor

Recent advancement of two dimensional MXene nanomaterial offers promise in gases and biosensor areas owing to its large surface area, high thermal conductivity, remarkable safety and excellent catalytic activity traits. The current chapter aimed to review the fundamental and technological aspects of MXenes, including myriad synthesis techniques and structural as well as electronic characteristics of these compounds. The features elucidated in the subsequent sections, examined by both theoretical and experimental approaches and potentialities of MXenes in the gas removal and biosensor applications. Several challenges and exciting future opportunities of this research platform are lastly summarized.

Carbon Materials for Gas and Bio-Sensing Applications Beyond Graphene

The development of technology in the area of material science and nanotechnology is a worldwide concern to researchers for generating a substance by synthesizing nanoparticles with required properties. Carbonaceous materials have gained numerous interests because of their direct electron or charge transfer capacity between active site reception and functionalized nanoparticles without involvement of a mediator. However, among all existing materials, carbon nanotubes have been proven to elite beyond graphene. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess extraordinary electrochemical biosensing and gas sensing due to their specific properties. This encourages researchers to gain new ideas about construction and development of immunosensors, genosensors, enzymatic biosensors and specific gas sensors based on above nanoparticles. Qualification of working electrode via incorporation of two or more of these nanoparticles gives enhanced stability, better sensitivity and functionality to the sensor. This chapter reviews basic information about sensors, their types, functionalization, fabrication mechanisms and applications for future prospective.

Colorimetric and Fluorometric Sensor Arrays

The design and construction of colorimetric/fluorometric sensor arrays with high selectivity and sensitivity has been of considerable attention as an emerging technology for mobile chemical detection. Nowadays, many approaches have been made to design sensors, fabricate arrays and generalize their usage areas especially in daily life applications and industrial sectors. This chapter introduces the fundamentals, fabrication methods, and applications of colorimetric and fluorometric sensor arrays. The readers will find detailed information about mechanism of chemical sensing and optical sensor arrays; solid state sensor fabrication methodologies; and specific applications environmental, pharmaceutical, medical, and food sectors.

Toxins and Pollutants Detection on Biosensor Surfaces

Detecting toxins and pollutants is a field of biological sensing investigation. A rapid responsive and reliable biosensor has become an urgent requirement to help detect pathogenic bacteria and toxins that cause dangerous diseases. Recently studies have developed a multi-channel surface plasma resonance sensor for the simultaneous quantitative disclosure of food-borne bacterial pathogens. Now, biosensors are a dominant alternative to traditional analytic procedures to control both natural water quality and the water treatment used by the food manufacturing during the production method, and wastewater before it is released into natural waterways. The most significant attributes of biosensors are the immense sensitivity, short time interval, precision, and comparatively insignificant cost. Biometric sensors will discover the existence or coexist the content of varied cytotoxic materials (insecticides, serious metals, etc.) in both water and food. The existence of pollutants, particularly toxic metal ions within the water used in food manufacture processes, may be a potential field for biosensor applications. This chapter summarizes the evolution and application of biosensors to regulate and discover toxins and different pollutants. It will highlight the various biosensors and the future sight of this field.

Graphene Nanostructures as Nonenzymatic Glucose Sensor

The increasing demand for the development of highly selective and sensitive nonenzymatic electrochemical sensors for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of glucose in pharmaceutical, clinical and industrial sectors has gained enormous attention towards the use of graphene and its derivatives. This chapter describes the efficient development of electrochemically active nonenzymatic glucose sensors using graphene and its composites, achieving high sensitivity, stability, low detection limit, wide linear range and reproducibility.

2D Materials for Gas and Biosensing Applications

This chapter discusses the unique and novel properties of 2D materials useful for toxic gas and biosensing applications. The work presented in this chapter mainly focuses on latest research done on 2D materials related to toxic gas and biosensing for surface plasmon resonance based sensors. Here, we proposed a surface plasmon resonance sensor utilizing P3OT thin films which can sense different concentration of NO2 gas. The performance of proposed design is evaluated by calculating sensitivity, detection accuracy and quality factor, with and without use of silicon layer. Sensitivity of proposed sensor increases by using silicon.

Hydrazine Sensing Technologies

Recently, the design, fabrication, and development of the different types of sensing techniques have been reported. Hydrazine is used in many industries such as agriculture, power generation, pharmaceutical, aerospace, and chemical industries. Hydrazine can cause environmental contamination and severe health hazards on human life. Different sensing technologies are used to detect and estimate hydrazine concentration in the atmosphere such as soil and water etc. Among these techniques, electrochemical technology shows high sensitivity and selectivity towards the detection of hydrazine.

Nitrogen Dioxide Sensing Technologies

The harmful impacts of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) include acid rain, respiratory diseases, allergy and photochemical smog. These also causes throat, eye and nose problems, cough, nausea and tiredness in extremely low concentrations (<10 ppm). So, detection and the sensing of NO2 gas is considered as one of the most important detecting techniques. Numerous electronic sensors, semiconductor nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, graphene, activated carbon and mixed metal oxides have been investigated in order to detect and sense NO2. Several varieties of gas sensors including electrochemical, catalytic combustion, semiconductor and solid electrolyte gas sensors, have been industrialized.