Electrochemical Sensors for Food Quality Control
A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Chemical Sensors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 November 2020) | Viewed by 472
Special Issue Editor
Interests: food antioxidants; electrochemical sensors; electronic tongues; electronic noses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Today, the food industry can verify the compliance of their products with regulatory or quality specifications thanks to the availability of several advanced analytical tools, such as ultra-high performance chromatography, high-resolution MS/MS, high field NMR spectrometers or multi-element inductively coupled plasma spectrometers, just to cite a few. However, such methods are often very complex, have high-costs of implementation, long analysis times, or low sample throughput. Instead, because of the large size of the food industry, the high rate of production, the elevated level of automation, and the inherently complex nature of foods, there is a growing need to develop fast, simple, cheap, and high-throughput detecting sensors or probes that could be easily used on-line or at-line of the process, to continuously screen or monitor the changes occurring to foods during their manufacturing. Among the sensor technologies available, this Special Issue will focus its attention on electrochemical sensors and biosensors. Such sensors are transducers (or sensing units) that, together with a reference electrode and, sometimes, a counter electrode can convert information, like the analyte concentration, into an electrical output signal. The inherent simplicity of an electrochemical transducer offers, in principle, an unlimited possibility to modify, improve or create new detection schemes. For instance, the sensing unit, often referred to as a working electrode, can be chemically modified, functionalized with biochemical elements like enzymes, antibodies or even cells, or also combined with nano-materials to develop unique sensing units operating at the femto-molar limit of detection, within a wide range of operating pressures or temperatures, or with an unprecedented selectivity or sensitivity towards specific molecules. Moreover, one specific feature of electrochemical transducers is that they are not limited by the optical path-length, as optical sensors are. Thus, they can be conveniently miniaturized, printed into flexible materials, or even used as detectors of microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices. Furthermore, the low-cost instrumentation required to control such sensors allows the development of multi-sensor arrays systems or stimuli-responsive surfaces, which, in turn, can ultimately mimic the working detection principle of human tongues and noses. Finally, electrochemical transducers are well-recognized tools to offer several analytical advantages, such as high sensitivity and selectivity, low detection limit, fast response time, and wide linear range. Due to the great relevance and interest of these themes, this Special Issue is promoting the development of novel rapid electrochemical sensors and biosensors for the quality control of food industries.
This Special Issue is looking for original contributions that can extend, promote, and implement electrochemical sensors and biosensors as quick analytical tools for the following applications:
- Check the compliance of foods with quality or safety specifications
- Screen the achievement of specific properties of foods or ingredients, such as their antioxidant power, radical oxygen scavengers activity
- Monitor the quality changes occurring to foods during their processing
- Monitor the extent of relevant food reactions, such as the Maillard reaction, Fenton reaction, lipid oxidation, radical chain reaction, vitamin loss during manufacturing or storage, fermentation reactions, reactions with the evolution of volatile compounds or modification of the taste
- Test the migration of hazardous substances from packaging materials or materials in contact with foods - test the chemical or biological safety of foods
- Verify the authenticity of foods—detect frauds
- Detect defects, such as off-odors, off-flavors or unpleasant taste
Among the electrochemical sensors or biosensors, this Special Issue will look for sensors based on the following:
- Amperometry, voltammetry, potentiometry, or conductometry sensors,
- Chemically or biochemically modified sensors
- Electrochemical sensor arrays, such as electronic tongues and noses
- Electrochemical nano(bio) sensors
Prof. Matteo Matteo Scampicchio
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- electrochemical sensors
- electrochemical biosensors
- food quality
- food safety
- food control
- food authenticity
- flow injection analysis
- rapid methods
- amperometry
- voltammetry
- potentiometry
- conductometry
- electronic tongue
- electronic nose
