Functional Nanomaterials in Sensing and Biosensing Applications

This chapter deals with the description of electrochemical sensors and biosensors aiming at the identification and quantification of various chemical species. The introduction of conceptually new biosensors or an improvement of the existing ones is benefiting from the integration of functional nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are considered a pivotal tool for numerous applications in part due to their high surface area, compared to their respective bulk forms. "Detect-to-protect" biosensors are compact devices and analytical tools and a type of chemical sensors converting the biochemical reaction into analytical and measureable signal. Lateral flow immunoassays can be catalogued within paper-based devices. Their features such as low-cost, robustness, specificity and low limit of detection make them interesting for biosensing applications. Molecular imprinting technology is implemented as either bulk polymerization or surface imprinting polymerization. In electroanalysis, various conventional electrodes are applied for preparation of sensors and biosensors. Screen-printed electrodes are devices that are produced by printing different inks on various types of plastic or ceramic substrates.