Electrochemical Sensors and Techniques for Detection of Heavy Metals in Water: African Research Group Contribution

Abstract

Africa as a developing continent is confronted with heavy metals pollution of their various water sources sequel to extending urbanization, growing industrialization and consequent rising anthropogenic activities accompanying development. With poor urban planning, indiscriminate slum settlement budding, unhealthy environmental sanitation, growing industrial and household water effluent, and random disposal of solid waste in the ecosystem, the available water sources decline in quality with the attending development, especially in the Sub-Saharan regions. This environmental pressure leading to the deterioration of water quality among other impacts has in recent time attracted numerous deserving research interests. Several literature reports have considered the quantifications of some of these heavy metals and likely sources in the surrounding ground and surface water. However, the conventional spectroscopic techniques, usually expensive, involving sophisticated instrumentation and requiring high professionalism to operate, have always been employed. Unfortunately, this would never be sufficient in the assessment of heavy metal pollution in our water bodies owing to the extent of the contamination. Hence, this paper reviews the quantification of heavy metal in our ground and surface waters, their sources, adverse health effects and the role of indigenous African electrochemists in the environmental monitoring of these heavy metals using the various voltammetric technique, as a competitive, point of care, low-cost and sensitive alternative to the spectroscopic strategy. Figure 1