Sensing and biosensing with optically active metal-oxide nanomaterials

Metal-oxide nanomaterials, especially transition metal-oxide nanomaterials, bring the possibility of diversified applications due to their unique chemical and structural properties. They possess a high surface area as well as exceptional optoelectronic, magnetic, and thermal stability properties. These materials have been used as a potential matrix in large-scale applications such as catalysis, photocatalysis, sensing and biosensing, supercapacitors, energy storage devices, and biomedical field due to their natural abundance, the potential for recycling, low toxicity, cost-efficiency, and easy synthetic route. Because of the advantageous features like simplicity, high sensitivity, and selectivity of chromogenic- and fluorogenic-based sensors, the optically active metal-oxide nanomaterials are also applied for the sensing of various analytes like metal ions, anions, biomolecules, etc. This chapter summarized the different aspects such as synthesis and characterization of metal-oxide nanoparticles, and their potential applications in sensing and biosensing.