Abstract
Contamination by heavy metals is currently one of the most environmental concerns especially due to the toxicity, pervasiveness, and persistence of these substances. As they are not biodegradable, heavy metals are harmful not only for water, air, and soil but also for human health, even in very low traces. There is therefore a pressing need to develop an efficient, economic, and rapid analysis method to be applied in a wide range of conditions and able to detect very low contaminants concentrations. Currently, the most novel solution in this field is represented by the combination of electrospun nanofibers and highly sensitive electrochemical techniques. It has been proved that nanofibers, due to their outstanding properties, perfectly fit as sensing material when trace concentrations of heavy metals were investigated by anodic stripping voltammetry, envisaged as the most sensitive electrochemical technique for this kind of measurements. This work aims to provide an overview of the latest trends in the detection of contaminants by the simultaneous use of electrospun fibers and anodic stripping voltammetry. Indeed, a clear and comprehensive vision of the current status of this research may drive future improvements and new challenges.
Highlights
Electrospinning (ES) is a versatile technique applied to produce nano- and microfibers.It makes use of an electrical force to extrude conductive polymeric solutions in fibers with nanoscale diameters
Electrochemical techniques have been widely used on account of several advantages over the above-cited ones, such as high sensing performances, very low limits of detection (LOD), simpleness, fastness, and cheapness, together with the ability to simultaneously detect different substances [29,30]. Among these electrochemical methods, stripping voltammetry is a good choice for heavy metal ions (HMIs) detection because of its simplicity, easy instrumentation, high sensitivity, low LOD, short-time measurement, and, last but not least, portability [31]
In this mini-review, we summarized the most recent advancements in the development of fibers, fabricated by ES, for the detection of HMIs by the anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV)
Summary
Electrospinning (ES) is a versatile technique applied to produce nano- and microfibers. Electrochemical techniques have been widely used on account of several advantages over the above-cited ones, such as high sensing performances, very low limits of detection (LOD), simpleness, fastness, and cheapness, together with the ability to simultaneously detect different substances [29,30]. Among these electrochemical methods, stripping voltammetry is a good choice for HMIs detection because of its simplicity, easy instrumentation, high sensitivity, low LOD, short-time measurement, and, last but not least, portability [31].
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