Electrochemical Transducers for Biosensors

Abstract

Chemical sensors are small tools designed to monitor analytes’ chemical, physical, or biological properties and provide qualitative or quantitative data. Biosensors, a subclass of chemical sensors, contain a biological recognition element and a transducer to detect chemicals. Much research has been done to develop various sensitive and selective biosensors for different purposes using electrochemical, optical, and mass-sensitive transducers. Electrochemical transducers convert chemical information into measurable electrical signals such as current, voltage, charge, and impedance. Electrochemical transducers are utilized to fabricate electrochemical sensors in which the analyte concentration is proportional to the recorded electrical signal. Electrochemical biosensors have been developed and used more than other biosensors due to ease of use, fast response time, and small size. Also, electrochemical biosensors are more preferable for commercial aspects due to their low cost, stability, low sample requirement, and low detection limits. On the other hand, electrochemical biosensors have high sensitivity and excellent specificity owing to electrochemical transducers and biological recognition processes, respectively. Electrochemical transducers can be voltammetric, amperometric, impedimetric, potentiometric, and conductometric. This chapter discusses the different transducers for electrochemical biosensors. Furthermore, the applications of different kinds of electrochemical biosensors in various fields and prospects are investigated.