Chapter 6 - Uncovering the unique attributes of 2D graphene-based nanomaterials in food safety and practices

Abstract

It has been seen that nowadays there is a remarkable curiosity toward the use of graphene and its derivatives among the researchers. These interests of researchers toward graphene are due to its uniqueness in terms of various properties such as thermal, electrical, mechanical, and optical. They are in great use in the field of food processing and safety. Hence, this chapter will focus on the attributes of graphene, its function in detecting food quality, chemical contaminants, food composition, volatile organic compounds, toxins, pesticides. It also helps in extraction as its incorporation in food packaging and thus plays its role. As compared with other materials used in sensors and biosensors, graphene shows interesting features due to its shape, that is, planar in nature as well as chemical structure. It has high surface-to-volume ratio as well as atomic thickness of the sheet, which leads to induce high sensitivity to the local environmental change. This acts as an advantage for use in sensing devices. It is because the carbon atoms can interact with the sample provided, thus giving high sensitivity as compared with silicon nanowires. Therefore they contribute to the fabrication of electrochemical sensors as well as biosensors and have high applicability toward food safety and quality.