Chapter 21 - Carbon nanomaterial-based sensors: Emerging trends, markets, and concerns

Abstract

The demand for carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) in the development of sensors is rising from various end-use sectors such as chemical, medical, automotive, food safety, and energy due to their advantageous intrinsic properties that include chemical resistance, electrical conductivity, optical clarity, flame retardance, thermal stability, surface appearance, decreased water permeability, dimensional stability, and more. These inherent characteristics of zero-, one-, two-, and three-dimensional CNMs, such as graphene, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), nanodiamonds (NDs), carbon quantum dots (CDs), graphene quantum dots (GQDs) carbon nanofibers (CNFs), carbon nanohorns (CNHs), carbon nano-onions (CNOs), and carbon black (CB), are being utilized in recent years in the development of advanced technologies for sensing applications., Although sensors based on CNMs are promising, they have nevertheless faced many practical challenges to be used in different fields of applications. For instance, their processing is not cost-effective for large-scale manufacturing of high-purity nanomaterials, which is the key reason why the existing market prices for CNMs in the fabrication of sensors are costly, thereby limiting their commercial applications in this sector. In terms of value and volume, this chapter identifies, explains, and forecasts the global demands of sensors based on CNMs and it provides detailed information regarding the emerging trends, concerns, and factors influencing the growth of the market.