Abstract
Nowadays, environmental pollution is one of the major worldwide problems. There are various types of pollutants (i.e., organic, inorganic, and biological materials), which can contaminant water resources, land, and air. Therefore, there is a high demand to develop and design new devices for the detection and determination of various contaminants in the environment. In this regard, the chemical and biological sensors are interesting tools for environmental applications. Recently, different types of chemical and biological sensors, such as electrochemical, fluorescence, and mass-based (bio)sensors, have been developed through the studies of researchers in the many fields of science by chemists, chemical engineers, physicists, etc. Among the developed sensors and biosensors, the electrochemical ones have many advantages, including low cost, easy to fabrication and use, ability to miniaturization, and application in the point-of-demand. Furthermore, the electrochemical biosensors have been classified as the electrochemical immunosensors, aptasensors, and genosensors, which have high selectivity and sensitivity toward the proposed targets, with an emphasis on opportunities for further improvement in contaminants diagnostics and monitoring. Considering these conditions, the main approach of this review is on the electrochemical immunosensors, aptasensors, and genosensors, which have been applied in the determination of various contaminants, including organophosphorus, toxic hydrocarbons and organic compounds, heavy metals, and toxic anions and cations. The figures of merits of some important studies and related data such as LOD, LDR, and electrochemical methods, which have been used to determination of contaminants as well as the (bio)sensor design, are presented in the tables to further comparison and information.
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Introduction
Environmental challenges are becoming a key factor in the political and scientific efforts to protect human beings. The growing world population, shortcoming water resources, air pollution, and toxic materials can contaminant the land, air, and water as the main environmental challenges. A wide range of chemicals can contaminate water sources, land, and air, which impact the environment and human health [1]. In general, there are two basic types of pollutants, including primary contaminants, which have harmful effects in the form in which they are released into the environment and secondary contaminants, which are formed as a result of a chemical process in the environment, often from less harmful precursors [2, 3]. The controlled or uncontrolled leakage of toxic heavy metals, hydrocarbons, organophosphorus compounds, and pesticides is a serious environmental concern [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Most of the industrials and production procedures are the main sources of contamination. Oil processing industries, refinery processes, petrochemical industries, chemical production, agricultural activities, dangerous wastes of the hospital (maybe include biochemicals, bacteria, and viruses), wastewater treatment plants, and sewage systems are traditional sources of environmental contaminants, which resulted in the pollution of air, water resources, and land [10,11,12,13]. Furthermore, many substances that are presented naturally in soil and water, for example, heavy metals [14], nitrate compounds [15], and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), have been categorized as the environmental contaminants [16]. On the other hand, most of the released contaminants are stable in the polluted areas for years and continue to affect the environment. Besides, some pollutants such as pesticides and herbicides resist against breakdown processes in the environment and finally enter the food chain, which in turn may be consumed by humans. On the other hand, long-term exposure to the contaminants resulted in the potential health effects includes various issues in the living organisms such as nervous system or blood problems, increased risk of cancer, problems in eye, liver, kidney, anemia, increase in blood cholesterol, cardiovascular system or reproductive problems, and allergic dermatitis [17]. Also, entering toxic industrial chemicals and biochemicals into the sediments can impact large coastal areas, which threatening human health and reducing the economic situation of regions that depend on a healthy and safe coastal environment. The chemical contaminants may result in toxic reactions in the environment. On the other hand, the microbiological contaminations result from various types of biological species such as bacteria, yeast, fungi, virus, prions, protozoa, or their toxins and by-products, that can occur during harvesting, processing, distributing, handling, storing, and preparing of products [6]. Furthermore, biological contaminants are dangerous and have a high impact on the environment. These types of contaminations can result from the animal or human activities; therefore, the detection of the contaminations and type of contaminations are of interest. The list of some water hazardous contaminants is presented in the literature [18].
The primary standards and treatment techniques are presented by the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR) as the legally enforceable protocol that applies to public water systems treatment. The as-introduced primary standards and treatment techniques protect public health by limiting the levels of contaminants in drinking water. In Table 1, a list of some chemical and biological contaminants have been presented [19]. As can be seen in Table 1, the environmental contaminants can be classified based on their physical and chemical properties, abundance, persistence in the environment, the effect on ecosystems, or toxicity. The major environmental contaminants categorize as biological contaminants and chemical contaminants. Each of these categories includes various sub-categories that have high impacts on environmental quality. In this respect, for a better focus and discussion about the various contaminants, various types of pollutants are divided into the two main categories with the sub-categories that are presented in Fig. 1. Organophosphorus compounds are phosphorus bearing organic compounds, which are used primarily in pest control as an alternative to chlorinated hydrocarbons. These compounds persist in the environment. Some organophosphorus compounds are highly effective insecticides, although some of them are extremely toxic to human and animals. Therefore, it is important to detect these compounds in the environment. On the other hand, heavy metals are naturally occurring elements with a high atomic weight and a density of at least 5 times greater than that of water. Some heavy metals (including iron, cobalt, and zinc) have essential nutrient properties. On the other hand, some heavy metals, such as ruthenium, silver, and indium, are relatively harmless. However, both heavy metal groups could be toxic in larger amounts or in certain chemical forms. Other heavy metals, such as cadmium, mercury, and lead, are highly toxic materials. The heavy metals could leak to the environment through various ways including mining, tailings, industrial wastes, agricultural runoff, occupational exposure, paints, and treated timber. Hence, the determination of heavy metals in the environment is essential. The presence of heavy metals, such as mercury in the environment, especially in water resources, is one of the dangerous problems in environmental safety and health. Mercury is a naturally existed element in water and soil, which may cause serious health problems. Mercury, also, is a threat to the growth of the fetus and child in early life and as well as organisms at all. Mercury and its toxic compounds may have effects on the nervous, digestive, and immune systems and could have an effect on the lungs, kidneys, skin, and eye tissues. Mercury is considered by WHO as one of the top ten chemicals or groups of chemicals with the highest major public health concern. People are mainly exposed to methylmercury, an organic compound when they eat contaminated fish and shellfish.
Various types of environmental contaminants
Due to the wide variety of contaminants, therefore, it is necessary to develop suitable methods for the detection and determination of such contaminants, owing to the nature of the contaminants. Several methods can be used for the determination of various contaminants. Therefore, many efforts have been performed to develop effective protocols for the determination of environmental contaminants. Traditional analytical methods commonly employed for the detection and quantification of the chemical and biological pollutants are atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) [20], gas chromatography (GC) or gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) [21,22,23], high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [24, 25], liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (LC/MS) [26, 27], fluorescence [28, 29], and electrochemical [30,31,32,33].
Generally, chemical (bio)sensors can be used in some of the above-mentioned methods. According to the IUPAC definition, a chemical sensor is a device that produces analytical responses resulted from analyte chemical information including the concentration of a specific sample component or total composition analysis [34], and a biosensor is a chemical sensor in which the recognition system utilizes a biochemical mechanism [35]. Hence, a chemical (bio)sensor is an analytical tool that can sense specific compounds or analytes in a liquid or a gas phase and provides information about the chemical composition and concentration of the analytes in the solution. Typically, a (bio)sensor system includes three essential components: (a) a (bio)recognition component to specific detection of the analyte; (b) a signal transducer, which generates a measurable response from the analyte-(bio)recognition component, and (c) an electronic system for data management. The aim of the (bio)sensors design is to achieve the professional devices for the detection of the specific analytes in a selective, sensitive, reproducible, rapid, low cost, and user-friendly manner. Therefore, it is critical that the designed (bio)sensors be miniaturized and automated. From the above-mentioned methods, the electrochemical (bio)sensors have the ability to be portable. In this regard, nowadays, the electrochemical (bio)sensors have been studied widely. On the other hand, the electrochemical (bio)sensors have high sensitivity and stability. In the following sections, the basic and applications of electrochemical (bio)sensors are highlighted and discussed.
Electrochemical sensors for environmental contaminants
Among the traditional (bio)sensors used for the detection of environmental contaminants, the electrochemical (bio)sensors have been attracted high attention. In recent years, various types of electrochemical (bio)sensors are prepared and applied for the detection of the contaminants. The main approach in the design of the electrochemical (bio)sensors is to increase the conductivity of the biosensor surface to achieving high electron transfer between the analyte and biosensor surface. Therefore, it is essential to use conductive components in the fabrication of the electrochemical (bio)sensors. To meet this challenge, some modifiers such as metallic nanomaterials, carbon nanostructures, and redox pairs have been used to increase the electron transfer efficiency [32, 36, 37]. On the other hand, some biological compounds such as DNA, RNA, enzymes, antibodies, and aptamers are used for achieving the higher selectivity and sensitivity in the fabricated sensors. The biological molecules interact specifically with the analytes, which increase the selectivity of the prepared biosensors. Since the response generation mechanism and design of the electrochemical sensor and biosensor are relatively different, in the following, the electrochemical sensor and biosensor are discussed separately.
Electrochemical sensors for the detection of environmental contaminants
Traditionally, various electrochemical sensors have been developed for the detection of broad types of compounds. As can be seen in Fig. 2, in the electrochemical sensors, electron transfer between the sensing layer and target contaminants can produce an electrochemical response. In this regard, a sensing layer is placed at the surface of a conductive substrate for the detection of targeted analytes [38, 39]. A wide range of materials has been used as a sensing layer in the environmental applications, including nanostructured metals [40, 41], various types of carbon allotropes [42, 43], composites of metal-nanostructured materials [44], boron-doped diamond [45], and various types of semiconductors [46]. Nowadays, many efforts have been provided for the detection of environmental contaminants. For instance, methyl parathion pesticide has been determined in groundwater using CuO–TiO2 as the sensing layer by a nonenzymatic electrochemical sensor (see Fig. 3a for schematic preparation of the sensor) [47]. The CuO–TiO2 hybrid nanocomposites were prepared by a simple and facile liquid precipitation method and then were dropped onto GCE. The as-prepared electrode was applied as a new chemical sensor for the electrochemical determination of the methyl parathion. It was found that the low limit of detection of methyl parathion was about 1.21 ppb in a wide dynamic range up to 2000 ppb. In addition, other organic compounds such as 4-nitrobenzaldehyde, nitrobenzene, and inorganic ions such as PO43−, SO42−, NO3−, Fe2+, Ni2+, and K+, which may coexist with methyl parathion, have not shown any interferences in the methyl parathion detection.
Schematic illustration of electrochemical sensors
a The schematic electrochemical sensing mechanism of CuO–TiO2/GCE for MP pesticides, “Reproduced with permission from Ref. [47].” b Schematic representation of mercury sensing by ZnO/Nafion/Au electrode, “Reproduced with permission from Ref. [48].” c Schematic representation of the sensing platform for the on-site and rapid detection of heavy metal pollutants directly from environmental samples, “Reproduced with permission from Ref. [49]”
On the other hand, ZnO quantum dots have been used as the electron mediator for electrochemical sensing of mercury (the schematic of the mechanism of the proposed sensor is shown in Fig. 3b) [48]. In this study, trace amounts of mercury have been determined electrochemically using linear sweep voltammetry technique at the surface of the ZnO quantum dots-modified Au electrode. The detection limit of the sensor is about 5 ppb.
In another study, some of the important heavy metal ions, such as mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic, zinc, and copper, have been determined electrochemically using a disposable printed electrode (DPE) in the environmental samples. The schematic of the proposed sensor is shown in Fig. 3c [49]. In this study, bismuth is added to the analyte solutions to the formation of bismuth–heavy metal alloy compounds, which resulted in the facilitated nucleation process during the preconcentration of heavy metals at the surface of the DPE chips. In addition, the electrochemical determination of the target heavy metals has been performed using anodic stripping voltammetry in the presence of bismuth. This method results in improved stripping characteristics, including well-defined and undistorted stripping signal and excellent resolution of the electrochemical peaks together as well as high sensitivity. The simultaneous measurement of the target metals is performed using a standard mixture of mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic, zinc, and copper with a concentration range between 5 and 100 µg/L and limit of detections equal to 1.5, 2.6, 4.0, 5.0, 14.4, and 15.5 µg/L, respectively. The results of some studies about electrochemical sensors applied for the detection of environmental contaminants are presented in Table 2.
Electrochemical biosensors for the detection of environmental contamination
The electrochemical biosensors provide various advantages such as portability, simplicity, being easy to use, cost-effectiveness, and as well as in most cases, they are disposable [8, 95]. Electrochemical biosensors are based on electrochemical biological processes performed at the surface of an electrode. The electrochemical biosensors are fabricated using three compact components, including (a) a biorecognition component to interact specifically with the target; (b) a signal transducer to generate a measurable electrochemical response from the analyte-biomolecular specific interaction; and (c) an electronic system for the data management [96]. The electrochemical signal is usually generated by applying a potential, current, or frequency through an electrode.
On the other hand, the sensitivity and selectivity of the fabricated biosensor are affected by the stabilized biorecognition element at the surface of the biosensor. In this regard, various types of molecular biorecognition elements have been studied in the development and fabrication of the biosensors, including various antibodies, enzymes, and synthetic recognition biomolecules such as DNA fragments, peptides, and aptamers are the most widely used biorecognition molecules [97]. The affinity of the biorecognition elements toward the targeted analytes provides specific detection and also increases the selectivity of the detection. Regarding the biosensor design and various types of the biorecognition molecules, biosensors can be categorized as immunosensors, aptasensors, enzymatic biosensors, and genosensors (nucleic acid biosensors). In this regard, the schematic design of the conventional electrochemical biosensors is presented in Fig. 4. As can be seen in this figure, the recognition biomolecules (e.g., antibody, aptamer, enzyme, and DNA, respectively, from left to right) attach selectively to the analytes to produce electrochemical responses.
Schematic illustration of electrochemical biosensors
In this review, the specific attention is focused upon immunosensors, aptasensors, and genosensors, which have been used in the detection of the environmental contaminants. The procedures of the fabrication and designing of the immunosensors, aptasensors, and genosensors are discussed briefly. In the following, the statistical data of the detections have been tabulated.
Electrochemical immunosensors for the detection of the environmental contaminants
In the immunosensors, there is a specific interaction between the antibody (Ab) and a certain target, known as antigen (Ag) [98,99,100,101]. In the electrochemical immunosensors, a specific Ab is immobilized at the surface of an electrode. Then, an electrochemical response is obtained as a result of the specific interaction between Ab and Ag. Because of using the Ab in the design of immunosensors, the target compounds are limited to specific types such as organophosphorus. Considering these conditions, the determination of inorganic compounds is not possible. Electrochemical immunoassays have two different strategies in the design, as simple and sandwich-type Ab–Ag interactions are [102].
In the simple Ab–Ag design strategy, there are no requirements for any label in the design; therefore, this strategy is label free. In this detection mode, the proposed antigen is introduced to the antibody immobilized at the surface of the substrate. The immunoassay detection is completed when Ab–Ag immunoreaction is performed at the surface of the biosensor [103,104,105]. In this design, it is critical to present a redox pair such as [Fe(CN)6]3−/4− or methylene blue to produce an electrochemical response for the determination of the target Ag concentration in the solution [106]. The electrical properties of the electrode surface are changed as a result of the formation of the Ab–Ag complex. Therefore, the electrochemical response of the redox pair, which is in direct relation with the target Ag concentration, is altered upon the Ab–Ag immunoreaction.
On the other hand, in the label-free immunosensors, due to the lack of the label, the sensitivity and the limit of the detection are not desired. Therefore, sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensors are designed for the improvement of the sensitivities and the detection limits of the immunosensors [107, 108]. In this strategy, an immuno-complex is formed between the primary Ab (Ab1), which immobilized at the surface of the electrode substrate, and target Ag (Ab1–Ag). After the formation of the immuno-complex, the labeled secondary antibody (Ab2) is introduced to the provided immuno-complex. In recent years, the higher sensitivity and selectivity in the determination of various environmental contaminants have been achieved using the sandwich-type Ab1–Ag–Ab2 interactions. In the sandwich-type immunosensors, the different kinds of labeled Ab2 resulted in the amplified electrochemical signal, so the performance of the immunosensors reaches higher levels.
An electrochemical immunosensor has been developed by Cao et al. for the detection of chlorpyrifos. The proposed electrochemical immunosensor is based on interdigitated array microelectrodes (IDAMs) [109]. This IDAMs-based immunosensor provides sensitive, specific, and rapid detection of chlorpyrifos. Protein A has been used to binding the Fc part of the Ab onto the IDAMs surface, which provides effective and stable stabilization of Ab. In this study, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) method has been applied to study the redox reaction of the chlorpyrifos at the surface of the fabricated IDAMs. Under the optimum conditions, the impedance responses of chlorpyrifos are linear to its concentrations in the range of 1.0 ng/mL –100 µg/mL, and the detection limit is found to be 0.014 ng/mL for chlorpyrifos. Furthermore, the as-prepared immunosensor could easily distinguish carbofuran, phoxim, carbaryl, and 3-hydroxycarbofuran from chlorpyrifos, illustrating the specificity of this immunosensor.
In the other study, graphene quantum dots (GQDs)-modified screen-printed immunosensor has been fabricated for the determination of parathion [110]. In this regard, GQDs are used in the fabrication of a label-free EIS-based screen-printed immunosensor (see the schematic of the proposed immunosensor in Fig. 5 (A)). This immunosensor exhibited a low detection limit of about 46 pg/L and the dynamic linear range 0.01 ng/L–1.0 mg/L for parathion. According to the results of this study, the presence of paraoxon, as a metabolite of parathion, has no interference in the detection of parathion using the proposed immunosensor. The reproducibility and stability studies of the proposed immunosensor show that the immunosensor has potential practical applicability.
a Schematic presentation of the GQDs-modified screen-printed immunosensor for parathion. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [110]. b Schematic illustration of electrochemical immunoassay based on Fe3O4-modified carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for chlorpyrifos detection. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [112]
In the other study for the determination of pesticides, an electrochemical immunosensor has been designed for the sensitive determination of the chlorpyrifos based on Fe3O4 modified CNTs as the enhanced multienzyme label composite (see Fig. 5b) [111]. In this study, flake-like Fe3O4 nanostructures have been deposited at the surface of the CNTs, and the as-prepared nanocomposite has been deposited at the surface of the GCE. Furthermore, the high sensitivity of the detection is obtained, which mainly attributed to the large surface area achieved because of using the flaky morphology of Fe3O4. So, the high loading extent of the multi-HRP–CNTs and Ab2 at the surface of the Fe3O4 (multi-HRP–CNTs@f-Fe3O4–Ab2) has resulted in the high sensitivity and selectivity. Under the optimum conditions, the as-prepared immunosensor shows high sensitivity and specificity in the detection of chlorpyrifos with suitable linear dynamic range and low detection limit (from 0.01 to 1000 ng/mL and 6.3 pg/mL, respectively), indicating that prepared immunosensor is able to detect chlorpyrifos in the real samples by good performances.
A new sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensor has been developed by Wang et al. based on Co3O4/PAn magnetic nanoparticle for the detection of chlorpyrifos [112]. The specific Ag of chlorpyrifos is attached to the surface of the Co3O4/PAn nanoparticles thin layer. The competitive reaction is performed between the chlorpyrifos in the samples and the chlorpyrifos attached to the electrode surface with the chlorpyrifos monoclonal Ab in the immunosensor. In this immunoassay, a labeled enzyme is used to amplify the signal of the Ag–Ab reaction, and the signal is measured by the enzyme-labeled system. However, the electrochemical response of this immunosensor is amplified by silver nanoparticles, which resulted in the high sensitivity and selectivity. Therefore, the limit of detection of the immunosensor is about 0.01 μg/mL in the linear dynamic range of 0–10 μg/mL. In Table 3, the results of the electrochemical immunosensors applied for the determination of organophosphorus are presented.
Electrochemical aptasensors for the detection of the environmental contaminants
In the detection of environmental contaminants, it is necessary to introduce various devices that should be fast, robust, sensitive, low cost, and capable of automation and minimization. To meet these challenges, the researchers are trying to find biorecognition molecules to achieve suitable detection conditions. Aptamers are nucleic acids with specific sequences of amino acids. The aptamers have unique binding sites, which make them applicable to bind specifically to their targets [116]. The aptamers were initially reported in the 1990s by Ellington [117] and Gold [118] as single-stranded DNA or RNA, which contain 15–40 bases long sequences of nucleic acids. The aptamers, commonly, are screened by a selection method known as the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) technology [119]. Considering these conditions, the SELEX technology helps the researchers to select the proper aptamers in vitro for any given analyte without cumbersome limitations in the selection of cell lines or animals, and the case is needed for the production of antibodies (Ab). Therefore, unlike the Ab, because of the SELEX strategy for the selection of the aptamers, these biological molecules can also be selected for the detection of the toxic or non-immunogenic targets [120]. In addition, the particular aptamers can be synthesized by reproducible synthesis manner, which resulted in the high, pure, and large quantity aptamer. Moreover, various functional groups such as fluorophores [121, 122], nanoparticles [123,124,125], or enzymes [126,127,128] have been used for further modification of the aptamers to enhance the selectivity and sensitivity of the fabricated biosensors, the case in which, the affinity of the aptamer is retained unchanged. Finally, unlike the Ab, the aptamers are very stable, and the active conformation of the aptamers can be recovered after use. However, the aptamers generally twist into proper three-dimensional structures in order to reach specific attachment to their targets.
An electrochemical aptasensor has been designed for the electrochemical detection of chlorpyrifos organophosphorus based on immobilized aminated probes (AMP) at the surface of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) nanocomposite/copper oxide nanoflowers-modified GCE (aptamer/AMP/CuO-NFs-SWCNTs/Nafion/GCE) nanocomposite. The schematic design of the proposed aptasensor is shown in Fig. 6 (A) [129]. In this study, a regenerative and selective electrochemical aptasensor is developed for the detection of chlorpyrifos. In this regard, the high surface area of the electrode surface was achieved using three-dimensional CuO-NFs nanostructure with low cost and excellent chemical stability. Furthermore, the obtained signal and electron transfer rate are increased using the SWCNTs because of superior mechanical properties, higher biocompatibility, and electrical properties of the CNTs. Herein, the aminated probes are immobilized onto the carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-SWCNTs) and hybridized with aptamers in order to fabricate the chlorpyrifos aptasensor. Moreover, under the optimized conditions, the fabricated electrochemical aptasensor exhibited excellent performance with high selectivity, low detection limit, and outstanding reproducibility. The results of the determination show that the limit of detection (LOD) and linear dynamic range (LDR) are 70 pg/mL and 0.1–150 ng/mL, respectively. Furthermore, this aptasensor shows significant potential for broad applications in the field of food safety and public health security. In the other study, an electrochemical aptasensor has been developed for the detection of malathion. The schematic of the proposed aptasensor is shown in Fig. 6b [130]. In this regard, chitosan–iron oxide (Chit–IO) nanoparticles are deposited at the surface of fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) sheets (Chit–IO/FTO), which provides a proper design for the aptamer immobilization. The proper biotinylated aptamer is immobilized at the surface of the as-prepared nanocomposite using streptavidin (SA) attached to the surface of the Chit–IO nanocomposite (APT/SA/Chit–IO/FTO). The results of the determination show that limit of detection (LOD) and linear dynamic range (LDR) are 1.0 pg/mL and 0.001–10 ng/mL, respectively. In addition, an electrochemical aptasensor based on conducting polymer was designed for the detection of malathion. In this study, a nanocomposite, including poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) conducting polymer, and c-MWCNTs have been developed for the fabrication of aptasensor [131]. The schematic design of the proposed aptasensor is shown in Fig. 6c. The prepared electrochemical aptasensor shows LOD and LDR equal to 0.5 fM and 0.1 fM–1 μM, respectively. Also, an ultra-sensitive and selective electrochemical aptasensor has been developed for Hg2+ detection. Figure 6d shows the schematic of the proposed aptasensor [132]. In this regard, a label-free electrochemical aptasensor is proposed for the detection of Hg2+ based on a gold electrode modified with double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). It is found that there is a linear relation between DPV current responses of the Hg2+ ions and the Hg2+ concentration over the concentration range of 5 zM–55 pM with the LOD of 6 × 10−22 M. In the following, the results of some studies are tabulated in Table 4.
a Schematic illustration of the regenerative electrochemical aptasensor for selective detection of chlorpyrifos, Reproduced with permission from Ref. [129]. b Schematic illustration for the fabrication of aptasensor based on the MAL/APT/SA/Chit–IO/FTO for the detection of malathion, Reproduced with permission from Ref. [130]. c Schematic representation of the development of aptasensor toward malathion detection, Reproduced with permission from Ref. [131]. d Design and performance of Hg2+ aptasensor. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [132]
Electrochemical genosensors for the detection of the environmental contaminants
In these types of biosensors, the biorecognition element is a class of nucleic acids, which are unbranched polymers that consist of four single units called nucleotides [159, 160]. Nucleotides contain three components, i.e., phosphate, sugar, and nitrogen-containing nucleobases [161]. The nucleotides are different in the sequence of their base. Generally, nucleic acids are divided into two main categories as ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The difference between RNA and DNA monomers comes from the difference between their sugars so that RNAs contain ribose sugars, and DNAs have deoxyribose sugar. On the other hand, DNA contains adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T), whereas, in RNA, uracil (U) base has been replaced by thymine [162].
The nucleic acids-based biosensors are principally based on highly specific hybridization of complementary strands of DNA or RNA. Therefore, genosensors are the affinity-based DNA biosensors in which single-stranded DNA/RNA (ss-DNA/ss-RNA) molecules, also known as the probe ss-DNA/ss-RNA, are used to capture an analyte or target [163]. The hybridization of the probe ss-DNA/ss-RNA with complementary target ss-DNA/ss-RNA or the disruption of the structural integrity of probe ss-DNA/ss-RNA by the analyte molecules (the case which occurs in the presence of heavy metals and organic hydrocarbon compounds) leads to changes in the genosensor signal [164]. To the best of our knowledge, most of the genosensors studies relating to the environmental applications relate to heavy metals detection. Therefore, in Table 5, the results of some studies about the electrochemical genosensors involved in the determination of heavy metals are summarized.
Future perspectives
The researchers in the field of biosensors are currently working toward the development of new nanostructured nanocomposites, which provide a suitable substrate for attachment of biological sensing layers. Therefore, various creative efforts are under consideration of the invention and development of fabrication techniques to design the new electrochemical biosensors. Since the electrochemical biosensors have easily fabricated design platforms to the determination of hazardous and toxic materials in the environment, their commercialization with cost-effectiveness procedures is an important aspect that should be taken into consideration. However, the application of the electrochemical biosensors in the point-of-demands for the detection of heavy metals, organophosphorus pesticides, and toxic organic compounds must be developed. Furthermore, the studies must focus upon the fabrication of the environmental electrochemical biosensors, which are disposable, cost-effective, easy to fabrication, large-scalability, and reusable. On the other hand, the efficiency and stability of the electrochemical biosensors require improvement in the development of suitable, selective, and sensitive biorecognition molecules and providing new kind methods to their stabilization. These developments resulted in a highly efficient and stable environment electrochemical biosensors.
Conclusion
In this review, the recently published papers (from 2015 to 2019) in the field of the electrochemical immunosensors, aptasensors, and genosensors applied for the detection of various environmental contaminants are considered. The studies mentioned in this review show that some contaminants such as organophosphorus, heavy metals, toxic organic compounds, and some of the organic anions and cations get more attention between the other contaminants. Furthermore, electrochemical biosensors represent high sensibility, low cost, and rapid responses, which make them ideal devices for the detection of the target contaminant compounds. To use various biorecognition molecules, the number of biosensors using aptamers as the biorecognition elements is more than antibodies and nucleic acids because the aptamers, unlike the antibodies, can also be used to the determination of heavy metals and various compounds rather than only biological compounds. Besides, the results of the various studies, which have been reviewed, show that the sensitivity of immunoassays is higher than aptasensors and genosensors, but both methods are applicable in the environmental contaminant determinations.
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Khanmohammadi, A., Jalili Ghazizadeh, A., Hashemi, P. et al. An overview to electrochemical biosensors and sensors for the detection of environmental contaminants. J IRAN CHEM SOC 17, 2429–2447 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13738-020-01940-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13738-020-01940-z