Recent Advances in Nanomaterial-Based Sensing for Food Safety Analysis

Abstract

The increasing public attention on unceasing food safety incidents prompts the requirements of analytical techniques with high sensitivity, reliability, and reproducibility to timely prevent food safety incidents occurring. Food analysis is critically important for the health of both animals and human beings. Due to their unique physical and chemical properties, nanomaterials provide more opportunities for food quality and safety control. To date, nanomaterials have been widely used in the construction of sensors and biosensors to achieve more accurate, fast, and selective food safety detection. Here, various nanomaterial-based sensors for food analysis are outlined, including optical and electrochemical sensors. The discussion mainly involves the basic sensing principles, current strategies, and novel designs. Additionally, given the trend towards portable devices, various smartphone sensor-based point-of-care (POC) devices for home care testing are discussed.

Multimodal Biosensing of Foodborne Pathogens

“…One approach to enhance the performance (e.g., sensitivity) of SPR biosensors for foodborne pathogens sensing is the use of long-range surface plasmons (LRSPs) together with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) assays. LRSPs demonstrate low losses in contrast to regular surface plasmons, resulting in narrower resonance and improved quality [8][9][10][11]. The use of MNPs can further improve a sensor response by facilitating an analyte delivery to the surface of a sensor and amplifying a change in refractive index linked to the detection of a desirable analyte.…”