Screen-printed carbon based biosensors and their applications in agri-food safety

doi:10.1016/j.trac.2020.115898

TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry

Volume 127, June 2020, 115898

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2020.115898 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Design and fabrication of screen printed carbon biosensors are discussed.
•
Immobilisation of biorecognition elements and chemical modification of biosensors are described.
•
The performance characteristics of the biosensors for selected analytes are summarised.
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This review highlights the application of biosensors to agri-food safety.

Abstract

This review focuses on the ways in which screen-printed carbon electrodes have been tailored with different biorecognition elements, including enzymes, antibodies, and aptamers, often with other modifiers, such as mediators and nanoparticles, to produce electrochemical biosensors for a variety of analytes of importance in agri-food safety. Emphasis is placed on the strategies of biosensor fabrication and the performance characteristics of the devices. As well as biosensors for a range of analytes in different agri-food matrices, we have also included reports on novel devices that have potential in agri-food safety but as yet have not been applied in this area.

Introduction

This review explores the fabrication and application of screen-printed biosensors for the analysis of selected species implicated in food safety in the agri-food sector. Screen-printing technology offers a number of advantages for the fabrication of electrochemical biosensors, including fabrication in a wide range of geometries, mass production at low cost, disposability and portability. These attributes are an important consideration in commercialising biosensors and the authors believe that the examples described in this review may be of particular interest to organisations wishing to market devices for agri-food safety.

A comprehensive review by Hughes et al. (2016) highlights the advantages of screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) biosensors for various applications including the agri-food area [1]. The advantages of carbon as an electrode material over other materials such as gold include affordability and versatility of fabrication and customizability with nanomaterials and biological elements due to its high surface area. Carbon is also non-toxic. Jewell et al. (2016) highlights important aspects of scaling up the production of SPCEs such as choice of solvent [2]. A review by Wang et al. (1998) outlines differences in electrochemical properties of four commercially available carbon inks from different vendors. The author concludes that choice of ink should depend on the analyte and electrochemical technique used for measurement [3]. Trojanowicz (2016) also outlines the advantages of SPCE biosensors for a range of applications and reviews a large number of designs; the author states the biggest progression in this technology over the last decade is the inclusion of various nanomaterials [4], a statement which is supported by Yamanaka et al. (2016) [5]. Cinti et al. (2017) outlines the advantages of graphene as a nanomaterial, which are mostly in common with the advantages of carbon as an electrode material [6].

Bio-recognition elements are readily immobilised onto the surface of carbon electrodes using strategies including adsorption, entrapment, cross-linking and covalent bonding. The bio-recognition element is chosen depending on the target analyte which results in highly selective measurements. Simple analytical methods are used in conjunction with the biosensors; typical measurement techniques include amperometry in stirred solution, chronoamperometry and pulse voltammetry. This is an attractive feature for end users of this technology for application in agri-food safety.

This review is broadly divided into 4 sections based on the classes of analyte determined, these are: (i) toxins, antibiotics and microorganisms, (ii) naturally occurring compounds, (iii) pesticides and (iv) metals.

Section snippets

Toxins, antibiotics and microorganisms

A good insight into some of the most important factors and useful generic approaches to utilising antibodies in various sensor formats involving screen-printed carbon surfaces can be found in a recent article by Sharafeldin et al. [7]. The authors compared various immobilisation strategies for antibodies onto screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) arrays, for the resulting antibody coverage, and also antibody activity in capturing the enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Passive adsorption led

Glucose

In this section, the fabrication methods are discussed in relation to the method of enzyme immobilization. This is summarised in Table 1.

The series of reactions leading to the generation of an amperometric response in the presence of glucose oxidase and a mediator, can generally be described by the following reactions.Glucose + GOD_OX → Gluconolactone + GOD_REDGOD_RED + Mediator_OX → GOD_OX + Mediator_REDMediator_RED → Mediator_OX + ne⁻

The method in which the enzyme, such as glucose oxidase, is bound

Pesticides

The use of plain SPCEs in relation to the direct determination of organophosphate pesticides (OPs) has largely disappeared from publication [78], which has been dominated by the development of a variety of bio-recognition strategies. An exception to this has been described by Li et al. [79], who discussed the development of a photo-electrochemical assay using SPCEs with nano-sized titania surface modification with ultraviolet photocatalysis. By using differential pulse voltammetry, these

Metals

There is a pressing need for convenient, rapid, cost-effective analytical methods for the measurement of metals in the agri-food sector. This section will describe a selection of novel screen-printed carbon biosensors, demonstrating their advantages in challenging matrices. Table 8 summarizes the performance characteristics of screen-printed carbon biosensors for some important metal ion contaminants. Ingestion of metal ions can be toxic, whilst the literature does not always directly describe

Conclusion

This review has focused on the ways in which SPCEs have been biologically modified with enzymes, antibodies, aptamers and bacteria together with chemical modifications such as organic and organometallic mediators (electrocatalysts), nanoparticles and membranes to further enhance the performance of the biosensors for potential application to agri-food safety.

In this review, we have also described a wide variety of applications in which prototype biosensors, based on SPCEs, were successfully

Funding

AS is a recipient of an AHDB PhD studentship (AHDB reference numbers 61100031 and 51510045).

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom, for supporting our research; we would also like to thank all the researchers whose work has been described in this review. Particular thanks go to Kelly Westmacott and Kevin Honeychurch for their interest.

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Screen-printed carbon based biosensors and their applications in agri-food safety

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Toxins, antibiotics and microorganisms

Glucose

Pesticides

Metals

Conclusion

Funding

Acknowledgements

Electrochim. Acta

Trac. Trends Anal. Chem.

Biosens. Bioelectron.

Biosens. Bioelectron.

Biosens. Bioelectron.

Sens. Actuators, B

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Biosens. Bioelectron.

Anal. Chim. Acta

Sensor. Actuator. B Chem.

Anal. Chim. Acta

Food Chem.

Biosens. Bioelectron.

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Anal. Chim. Acta

Anal. Chim. Acta

Anal. Biochem.

Anal. Chim. Acta

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Bioelectron

Biosens. Bioelectron.

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Anal. Biochem.

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