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Nanozyme-Based Sensors for Pesticide Detection

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Nanozymes for Environmental Engineering

Abstract

Detection of pesticides in food and environmental samples is critical as pesticide residues compromise with human and animal health. The residual pesticides are also of significant environmental concern as they continue to accumulate in soil and water leading to change in the natural flora and fauna. Owing to these effects, several strategies have been proposed to detect and monitor their presence. Traditional strategies involve the use of expensive analytical tools that cannot be directly used on-site, require technical expertise, face high operating cost, and are time intensive. This has led to the recent interest in alternative strategies for more efficient pesticide detection.

To this end, enzyme-mimicking catalytic activity of nanomaterials, more commonly referred to as the nanozyme activity, has been a topic of intensive research over the past decade. The potential applicability of nanozymes in environmental monitoring, diagnostics, sensing, microbial management, photodynamic therapy, and prodrug-activation therapy is being increasingly realised. Particularly, the importance of nanozymes in sensor development has seen tremendous interest, as previous sensors relying upon natural enzymes pose ongoing challenges in terms of stability and cost. Many such challenges can be mitigated by the use of nanozymes. The chapter outlines the strengths of nanozyme-based sensors for the detection of pesticides in food and environmental samples. An interesting aspect that has been discussed is the use of molecularly imprinted polymers and aptamers instead of antibodies for recognition of pesticides. Both of these recognition elements hold great promise in replacing our reliance on antibodies that rapidly denature and are cost prohibitive. The strength of nanozyme-based sensing platforms to be used on-site is also discussed, which is a significant advantage over conventional sensors that rely on bulky equipment. Lastly, the chapter discusses the next steps that needs to be addressed in further expanding this important area of research and bringing laboratory-based nanozyme sensor technologies to the market.

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Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge the support of Ian Potter Foundation in establishing Sir Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility at RMIT University, Australia that has enabled some of the work captured in this book chapter. V. Bansal and R. Ramanathan acknowledge the Australian Research Council (ARC) for funding support through ARC Discovery grant scheme (DP170103477). V. Bansal acknowledges the ARC for a Future Fellowship (FT140101285).

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Correspondence to Vipul Bansal or Rajesh Ramanathan .

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© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Naveen Prasad, S., Bansal, V., Ramanathan, R. (2021). Nanozyme-Based Sensors for Pesticide Detection. In: Daima, H.K., PN, N., Lichtfouse, E. (eds) Nanozymes for Environmental Engineering. Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World, vol 63. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68230-9_6

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