Chapter 25 - Sustainable carbon nanomaterial-based sensors: Future vision for the next 20 years

Abstract

Higher reliability, superior sensitivity, quicker response, rapid recovery, reduced size, low cost, easy operation, and in situ analysis are the qualities required for manufacturing better technological sensor devices. However, most of the sensors are costly; have complicated operation; require pretreatment; have slow responses; and don’t have the ideal limit of detection, selectivity, and sensibility. On the viewpoint to improve the limitations mentioned above, nanotechnology has sponsored the most capable improvement on materials’ properties providing major advances to overcome limitations of conventional materials. Carbon-based nanostructures have numerous advantages over other usually employed sensor materials, particularly their simple manufacturing processes, surprising physical–chemical properties, high-superiority sensing properties, environment-friendly material, improving detection accuracy, high portability, sensitivity, reliability, rapid analysis, high surface-to-volume ratio, chemical stability, high electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, reduced size, and robust mechanical strength. Therefore, carbon nanomaterials have been investigated to be used as powerful sensor devices. A Number of carbon nanomaterials such as nanodiamond, carbon nanotube, graphene, graphene oxide, fullerenes, mesoporous carbon, carbon quantum dots, buckypaper, reduced graphene oxide, and hybrid structures are reported and applied in sensor devices currently. Carbon nanomaterial-based sensors can be used as sensors for monitoring gas, humidity, heavy metal, detection of DNA, food safety inspection, physical parameter detection, such as pressure, stress, and strain, and biological as well as pharmaceutical compounds such as chlorambucil, diazepam, methylglyoxal, acetaminophen, β-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide hydrate, valacyclovir, and glucose. However, the sensitivity of carbon-based sensors can be improved even further by chemical modification of the surface, in addition to the surface architecture of these carbon-based nanomaterials. This surface modifications should permit further novel surface functionalizations by integrating the carbon nanomaterials with other nanoparticles, polymers, ionic liquids, DNA, enzymes, etc., which will increase not only the electrical conductivity but also the surface area; both of these factors should boost the sensitivity of the sensors.