Nitrite (NO 2 − ) has been extensively applied in agricultural and industrial products and is often found in various foodstuff, tap water, biological samples and environmental systems. However, NO 2 − as a toxic contaminant probably threaten the human health by producing highly carcinogenic N-nitrosamines. Compared with the traditional analytical techniques, electroanalytical method has considerable advantages such as cost-effective, rapidness, facile operation, and easy miniaturization. Graphene nanocomposites have significant synergistic electrocatalytic effect toward the nitrite redox, which could eventually amplify the electrochemical response signals, and improve the selectivity, sensitivity, and practicability for the nitrite detection in various real samples. The recent developments on graphene-based nitrite electrochemical sensors are reviewed from the view of sensing materials, including graphene, metal nanoparticle/graphene composites, nanostructured metal compound/graphene composites, polymer/graphene composites, MOF/graphene composites, enzyme/graphene composites, MWCNT/graphene composites, and electron mediator/graphene composites. Moreover, the sensing performances including detection ranges, limit of detection (LOD) and sensitivity are tabulated. Finally, the major drawbacks, opportunities and challenges of graphene-based nitrite electrochemical sensors are also discussed.

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4-nitrophenol (4-NP) is a hazardous waste and a priority toxic pollutant identified by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Hence, in this paper, a voltammetric sensor was proposed for the direct and sensitive detection of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) at nanomolar level in complex matrices by using graphene and acetylene black paste hybridized electrode (GR/ABPE). Under optimal conditions, the calibration curve demonstrates a linear relationship for 4-NP in the range from 20 nM to 8.0 μM and 8.0 μM to 0.1 mM separately with the detection limit of 8.0 nM. In addition to it, the performance of the GR/ABPE in practical applications was evaluated by detecting 4-NP in various water samples, and satisfactory recoveries were realized. Therefore, GR/ABPE may have a great potential application for facile and sensitive detection of 4-NP in complex matrices at nanomolar level.