Recent advances in Biosensor technology

Recent food safety incidents and public health concerns about synthetic food additives and chemical residues in food have driven the need to develop rapid, sensitive, and reliable methods to detect those food hazards and water borne pathogens, toxins and pesticide residues with high specificity. Biosensors present attractive, efficient alternative techniques by providing quick and reliable performances. An alternative is given in the rapid development of nanosensors which have advantage to detect food components in an easy and quick manner. Various types of biosensors are being developed to meet the different requirements in detection of external and internal conditions in food packaging, carbon nanotubes based electrochemical sensors for detection of pesticides, antibiotics, heavy metals, microbial cells and toxins. The work reviews development and application of the most present biosensors in agriculture and food industry.

Keywords:

Biosensor , nanotechnology , food safety , food industry