Abstract
Pesticides have been extensively used in agriculture to protect crops and enhance their yields, indicating the need to monitor for their toxic residues in foodstuff. To achieve that, chromatographic methods coupled to mass spectrometry is the common analytical approach, combining low limits of detection, wide linear ranges, and high accuracy. However, these methods are also quite expensive, time-consuming, and require highly skilled personnel, indicating the need to seek for alternatives providing simple, low-cost, rapid, and on-site results. In this study, we critically review the available screening methods for pesticide residues on the basis of optical detection during the period 2016–2020. Optical biosensors are commonly miniaturized analytical platforms introducing the point-of-care (POC) era in the field. Various optical detection principles have been utilized, namely, colorimetry, fluorescence (FL), surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Nanomaterials can significantly enhance optical detection performance and handheld platforms, for example, handheld SERS devices can revolutionize testing. The hyphenation of optical assays to smartphones is also underlined as it enables unprecedented features such as one-click results using smartphone apps or online result communication. All in all, despite being in an early stage facing several challenges, i.e., long sample preparation protocols or interphone variation results, such POC diagnostics pave a new road into the food safety field in which analysis cost will be reduced and a more intensive testing will be achieved.
Highlights
Accepted: 25 December 2020The ever-increasing demand for food production still requires a widespread use of pesticides
Considering that our study focuses on the analytical developments and applications in pesticide residue analysis, no further discussion on the physics behind phase sensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) measurement is provided, and two studies [82,83] are recommended for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon
Yearly reports on the occurrence of pesticide residues in the food chain as well as well-established regulation are available in the EU
Summary
The ever-increasing demand for food production still requires a widespread use of pesticides. It is necessary to seek for alternatives able to combine sufficient detectability with cost-efficiency, simplicity, and applicability at the point of need In this way, screening methods have been introduced in food contaminant analysis featuring a great potential [9]. There are several methods fitting within this concept aiming to achieve rapid, selective, cost-efficient, and sensitive screening in the food safety field [19] Such methods are usually based on bio-affinity interactions between selective biomolecules, e.g., antibodies [20] or enzymes [21], and pesticide residues, while biorecognition events are typically monitored by either optical or electrochemical transducers [22]. The emergence of smartphones as analytical detectors is discussed, highlighting the novel capabilities brought by this technology in the field
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
