Nanocomposite Materials for Sensors

Nanocomposites are rapidly emerging as novel materials for sensor technology; therefore, the scientific community has recently focused on the advancement in the development of innovative methods and materials relied upon efficient composites. The implementation of nanocomposite materials for the development of specific and sensitive sensing platforms receives good attention. This book focuses on the reviews of important reported literature for new approaches of nanocomposite material preparation and their applications in the development of physical, chemical, electrochemical, biological, and optical sensors, etc. These nanomaterials have been extensively used widely (to amplify the signal) in the detection of heavy metal ions, vital signs (i.e., glucose, etc.), explosives, hydrazine, humidity, etc. This book focuses on representing some state-of-the-art review chapters based on reported works in the last few decades, outlining the synthesis, role, and progress of nanocomposite materials in fabricating flexible and multifunctional sensing platforms in sensor technologies. The book is intended to prepare a highly compiled knowledge for designing novel nanocomposite materials to be used as sensing platforms in sensor technologies. A broad range of readers such as graduates and post-graduates, Ph.D. scholars, faculty members, professionals working in the area of material science, the healthcare industry, biological sciences, medical sciences, environmental science will be benefitted from the topics preferred in the proposed book.

The production of composites and materials based on nanocellulose has attracted considerable attention in the last few decades since their abundance, renewability, high strength and rigidity, environmental friendliness, and low weight are all unmissable and potentially useful. This analysis deals with crucial factors in the manufacture of nanocellulose composites and presents and explores different composite processing techniques. Rare combinations of features and new design opportunities are seen in high-performance nanocomposites. Their potential is so high that their utility in different fields, ranging from packaging to biomedicine, with an annual growth rate projected at around 25% and a standardized summary emphasizes the need for such products, their methods of fabrication, and several recent studies on structure, properties and potential applications. There is a focus on the possible use of naturally occurring materials like clay-based minerals, chrysotile and lignocellulose fibers. In this chapter, an overview of nanocomposites is deliberated in detail and the nanocomposite applications provide new technology and business options for different industries in the aerospace, vehicle, electronics, electrical and biomedical engineering sector as they are naturally friendly. 

The imperfections of microstructures and monolithic in different realms of material sciences have been completely engulfed by the improved characteristics and excellent properties of nanocomposites. Their multiphase components with nano dimensions provide these structures with much superiority over conventional composites. This paper is a brief review about nanocomposites and their classification. Based on the dimensionality of particle size these can be grouped into one-two- and three-dimensional nanomaterial derived composites while if the number of components form the basis, they can be classified into binary, ternary and quaternary nanocomposites. This work also discusses and focuses on the computational analysis of nanocomposites with designing and energy calculation studies, based on DFT, and other mathematical tools and models. The role of metal organic framework-based nanocomposites in sensor fabrication and quantification of different redox system have also been listed.

The robust, sensitive, and selective finding of various biomolecules and environmental factors by potential nanostructures holds much promise for accurate electrochemical sensors. However, to be competitive, present electrochemical sensor technologies need noteworthy developments, particularly in specificity output rate, and long-lasting steadiness in complex biological environments. Bimetallic carbon nanocomposites are newly emerging materials with fascinating physicochemical properties and are very prospective in the innovative point-of-care study of various healthcare issues. Particularly, the multidimensionality of bimetallic carbon composites and their structural, optical, electronic, and electrocatalytic properties are suitable for the design of various electrochemical sensing devices. This chapter summarizes the sensing applications of bimetallic @C and its modern advances in the detection of different analytes. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to the advancement of bimetallic @C based electrochemical sensors followed by the discussion of the structure and properties of the bimetallic @C nanocomposites. We also discuss in detail the utilization of these bimetallic @C nanocomposites with graphene, MWCNTs, CQDs, and g-C3N4 for their worthwhile application in electrochemical sensors. Finally, the chapter concludes with a positive outlook on the use of bimetallic @C nanocomposites for day-to-day life and clinical applications based on the present growth. 

This chapter reviews the usage of graphene nanostructures in the fabrication of electrochemical sensors. In current ages, graphene derivatives have attracted a great deal of attention due to their outstanding electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties, making them one of the most popular choices to develop the electrodes of a sensor. In addition, the high effective surface area, electrocatalytic activity, excellent electrical conductivity, high porosity and adsorption capability, fascinating their electrochemical properties, which turn them as potential candidates for electrochemical applications, particularly sensing. This chapter deals with an overview of the work done on graphene-based nanocomposites in very recent years. It explains the properties of graphene-based nanocomposites for their usage as electrochemical sensors.

 The enormous development in the industrial and ecological base has led to increasing concern over the advent of new materials with implicit properties. A considerable interest has grown in conducting polymer nanocomposites as they are widely attracted for diverse applications due to the combinatory effect of conducting polymers and electrical and chemical properties of inorganic nanoparticles. The result was incredible with unique functionality, conductivity, structure, reactivity, processability (colloidal stability or mechanical strength), and sensitivity with biodegradable and bio-compatible nature. The unique features of conducting polymer nanocomposites have gained attention in multiple applications. Recently, conducting polymer based nanocomposites are widely utilized as nanosensors in detecting temperature, stress, toxic gases and bio-elements. The present chapter deeply discusses the types of conducting polymer nanocomposites, as novel hybrid materials for sensor applications. 

Molecular imprinted polymers (MIP) are one of the promising method in various research area in which artificial receptor sites of targeted molecule were fabricated on a polymer matrix. These polymers are analogues to naturally occuring antigen-antibody system. Due to its high recognition capabilty and structural specificity towards the target molecule, these kind of polymers exhibits wide variety of applications in various fileds. Among the temendous applications, MIPs in electrochemical sensing got much attention in recent years. Innovative developments in nanochemistry again improve its applications in electrochemical sensing. In this chapter, we detailed the significance of nanostructured MIP focusing on multiwalled carbon nanotubes as supporting material in elecrochemical sensing applications. It presents recent progresses associated to molecularly imprinted electrochemical sensors based multiwalled carbon nanotubes. 

 Molecular imprinting technique (MIT) has been commonly and effectively used to prepare polymers which have some unique features like structure predictability, recognition specificity, low cost, remarkable robustness, physical stability, and application universality compared to other reported recognition systems. The application of molecular imprinting technology to the surface of carbon nanotubes, resulting in MWCNT-MIPs. Surface imprinting polymers have a high mass transfer power, high sensitivity, and a fast response time since the imprinting sites are on or near the surface of the substrates. These materials spread out their applications in many fields such as biomaterials, chemo/biosensors, catalysis, molecular/ionic separation and drug delivery. Even though there are enormous applications of such nanomaterials in various fields, this chapter proceeds with the sensing applications. 

Molecular recognition in biological systems drives and controls all the activities related to ‘Life.’ The accuracy, specificity, and selectivity of biological elements led to their use as biosensors for ‘sensing’. An ideal molecular recognition agent must comprise a stable, reproducible, reusable, robust, specific and preferably nonbiological material. Molecular imprinting has almost all attributes that qualify it to be an ‘ideal’ recognition agent. As a surrogate to biological receptors, synthetic MIPs have shown aspiring futuristic tools. Next-generation sensors could be visualized by a collaboration of synthetic polymers (MIPs) with innovative technologies replacing biosensors. Over the period of the last three decades, the introduction of specific binding sites within synthetic polymers by utilizing target-directed cross linking of functional monomers has attracted substantial consideration for the sake of the formation of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) based sensors. MIP seems like a reasonable tool for the creation of various sensors with broad practical relevance. This chapter outlines the sensors prepared on nanocomposite as an imprinting matrix. Strategic planning in synthesizing these novel matrices is praiseworthy. Hopefully, such measures would bring down the economic burden by devising cheaper sensing tools, especially diagnostic kits in such pandemic times.

In the research of nanocomposite, its selective and sensitive explosive detection is very critical. Due to a series of causes, including the vast collection of materials that can be used as explosives, lack of easy to detect signatures and broad ranges of means to deploy such weapons, and lack of affordable sensors of great sensibility and selectivity, explosive trace detection has been exceedingly difficult and costly. The fight against explosives needs a high resilience and selectivity coupled with the potential to lower deployment costs of sensors using mass processing. Nanosensors should fulfill the criteria of an efficient framework for explosive trace detection. In this research work, we confer about the ability of nanosensors to detect trace explosions, based upon high sensitivity and selectivity on nano mechanical sensors for both receiver and receptor-free sensing, which can be used because of their versatility and are incorporated into a multimodal sensor system.

 The present chapter provides an overview of the sources, consequences, and quantification of heavy metal ions (HMIs) present in the water sample. Heavy metal ions are recognized as one of the major water pollutants. Long-term consumption of HMIs causes serious health hazards and is also a threat to the ecosystem. In this regard, the synthesis and use of nanocomposites for the selective quantification of HMIs have been discussed in detail.

This chapter covers the advances in the development of a variety of composite materials ranging from noble metal/metal oxide nanoparticles, carbon composites, polymer composites and metal-organic framework-based composite materials specific to glucose. The advantages of nanocomposites as ‘electrode materials’ have been highlighted. The utilization of above-mentioned nanocomposites in non-enzymatic glucose sensors and their mechanism has been discussed. Further, special attention has been given to the MOF-based nanocomposites, which elaborates the applications of MOF-based materials in biosensing in recent years. This chapter gives an overall view of various nanocomposites used as electrochemical glucose sensors and opens up a new trend in materials science research to engineer advanced functional materials with tailor-made properties to suit relevant real-time applications within electroanalysis. 

In the field of nanotechnology, nanocomposites have gained increasing and significant attention owing to their unique physico-chemical characteristics. This outstanding characteristic makes them a suitable candidate in various fields of application, such as electronics, sensors, biotechnology and catalysis. The development of nanocomposites has proven to be a basis for the development of accurate electrochemical sensors with low limit of detection, high sensitivity and selectivity. The high performance electrochemical sensors have found their way in various application fields, such as biomedical, analysis of food products and other environmental pollutants present in the atmosphere. In this chapter, we present a survey of the application of various tailored nanocomposites as sensing platforms for hydrazine. Particularly, electrochemical sensors based on carbon-based nanomaterials, metallic nanomaterials, and related nanocomposites are given special attention.

Nanocomposite materials have appeared as appropriate replacements to overcome the limitations of microcomposites and simple nanomaterials. There is an upsurge of interest in nanocomposite materials due to the significant applications and all the research areas related to chemical, physical and biological sciences. Making composites with the combination of nanomaterials could convert them into superior materials for the sensing analytes, such as anions, cations, biomolecules, explosives, toxic gases, food toxins and organic compounds. This chapter emphasizes only on the recent investigations of nanocomposite materials for the detection of toxic metals and anions by optical detection methods, such as fluorescent and colorimetric methods. Appropriately selected examples are discussed in detail.

 The present chapter describes the synthesis and applications of different classes of nanocomposites in humidity sensing applications, along with their innovative surface and responsive properties. The uses of nanocomposite-based humidity sensors in different fields like environmental monitoring, packaging, and the medical field have been described with suitable examples and illustrations. Furthermore, the humidity sensing mechanism of nanocomposite based humidity sensors are explained with sensing parameters and with future requirements.