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Abstract
Recent trends and challenges in developing carbon nanotubes (CNT) based sensors and biosensors for the detection of organophosphate (OP) pesticides and other organic pollutants in water are reviewed. CNT have superior electrical, mechanical, chemical, and structural properties over conventional materials such as graphite. At the same time CNT based sensors and biosensors are more efficient compared to the existing traditional techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography or gas chromatography, because they can provide rapid, sensitive, simple, and low-cost on-field detection. The measurement protocols can be based on enzymatic and non-enzymatic detection. The enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is used with CNT for fabricating ultrasensitive biosensors for OP detection involving different immobilization schemes such as adsorption, crosslinking, and layer-by-layer self-assembly. This protocol relies on measuring the degree of enzyme inhibition as means of OP quantification. The other enzyme used along with CNT for OP detection is organophosphate hydrolase (OPH) which hydrolyzes the OP into detectable species that can be measured by amperometric or potentiometric methods. Different forms of CNT electrode materials can be used for fabricating such electrodes such as pure CNT and composite CNT. Due to their large surface area and hydrophobicity, CNT have also been used for the extraction and non-enzymatic electrochemical detection of OP with very high efficiency. The application of CNT and their novel properties for the adsorption and electrochemical detection of OP compounds is discussed in detail.