Graphene/Graphene Oxide and Carbon Nanotube Based Sensors for the Determination and Removal of Bisphenols

Abstract

In the past decades, the high concerns are increasing about the feasible health threat caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which could interfere with hormone biosynthesis, metabolism, or activity in a deviation from normal homeostatic control or reproduction. Among the numerous EDCs, bisphenol A (BPA) has strained great attention because of its wide occurrence and toxicity. Graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising and novel carbon based materials that have high potential for fabrication of toxic detection sensors due to its high chemical stability, large specific surface area, abundant pore size distribution, ease of functionalization and feasibility of mass production. The fabricated sensors using GO and CNTs materials are very useful and primary choice for detection and removal of toxic harmful organic contaminants and toxic pollutants chemicals containing bisphenols. BPA is one such kind of toxic material is well-known as a typical endocrine disruptor which can mimic estrogen and lead to negative health effects on animals, wildlife and human beings. It has been widespread concerned in recent years for detection and removal of BPA due to its health hazard to wildlife and humans. BPA enters in our daily life food and water matrix by depolymerisation, leaching and migration from food packaging materials such as polycarbonates, polysulfone, polyacrylates and epoxy resins used in the industrial manufacture of water bottles, feeding bottles, internal coating in tin cans, microwave oven wares etc. An intensive study reveals that BPA has been also detected in wastewater, groundwater, surface water, and even drinking water. A large number of attentiveness studies have verified that BPA can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders even at very low part-per-trillion doses. These carbon based materials also used to remove low-level environmental EDCs in micro-polluted water with the aid of an investigation about the adsorption of BPA at low levels in a very wide range. The GO and CNTs based sensor exhibited faster response, adequate storage stability, inexpensive, simple fabrication with disposability, satisfactory reproducibility and repeatability, and outstanding selectivity for the determination and removal of BPA. In this chapter we have done selective literature survey concerning the construction of sensors and biosensors based on GO and CNTs related materials for detection and removal of BPA from different kind of solutions and materials. The included literature survey article in this chapter also provides an overview of analytical performance for application in clinical, environmental, and food sciences research, and comments on future and interesting research trends in this field.