Environmental Analysis by Electrochemical Sensors and Biosensors

Electrochemical sensors represent the oldest type of chemical sensors and are widely present in chemical laboratories, industries, healthcare and in many aspects of our daily life. During the past few decades biosensors mimicking biological receptors for the sake of analytical assessment have emerged as an extremely important and fruitful field in fundamental and applied electroanalytical chemistry. Research and routine analysis in environmental sciences have shown that electrochemical sensors and biosensors may supply useful information for solving problems from the quite general to the highly specific, dealing with environmental pollution or many other questions in connection with (bio)geochemical cycles or fundamental environmental chemical processes. Environmental analytical chemistry is a multidisciplinary field requiring the cooperation of chemists, biochemists, physicists, engineers and many other specialists, a collaboration which defines and guarantees the development and applicability of robust and highly sensitive sensors for chemical analysis and environmental monitoring. The aim of this book is to give an overview of the role of electrochemical sensors in environmental chemical analysis and on their operating principles. It provides detailed information on the applicability of such sensors to the determination of all the different substances of environmental importance. It is designed on one hand as a textbook for students and teachers, and, on the other, as a manual for researchers and applied scientists and engineers who are fully or marginally confronted with problems in context with environmental chemistry. Due to its multidisciplinary character the book synthesizes various viewpoints of different sciences and addresses chemists, physicists, pharmacists, medical doctors, engineers and in fact all who are interested, professionally or non-professionally, in the chemistry of our environment.

Auteur

Ligia Maria Moretto graduated in Chemical engineering at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and received her PhD in 1994 from the University Ca' Foscari of Venice with a thesis Ion-exchange voltammetry for the determination of copper and mercury. Application to seawater. Her academic career began at the University of Caxias do Sul, Brazil, and followed at the Research Institute of Nuclear Energy, Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1996 she had the habilitation as researcher in analytical chemistry at the University Ca' Foscari of Venice. Working at the Laboratory of Electrochemical Sensors, her research field is the development of electrochemical sensor and biosensors based on modified electrodes, the study of gold arrays and ensembles of nanoelectrodes, with particular attention to environmental applications. She has published more than 60 full papers, several book chapters, and has presented 90 contributions at international conferences, resulting in more than 1100 citations. Dr. Moretto also collaborates as an invited professor and invited researcher with several institutions in Brazil, France, Argentina, Canada and USA.

Kurt Kalcher completed his studies at the Karl-Franzens University (KFU) with a dissertation in inorganic chemistry entitled Contributions to the Chemistry of Cyantrichloride, CINCCI2; he also received his PhD in 1980 from the same institution. In 1981 he then went for a postdoctoral stay at the Nuclear Research Center in Jülich (Germany) under the supervision of Professor Nürnberg and Dr. Valenta, and conducted intensive electroanalytical research while he was there. Dr. Kalcher continued his academic career at KFU with his habilitation on chemically modified carbon paste electrodes in analytical chemistry in 1988. Since then, he has been employed there as an associate professor. His research interests include the development of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for thedetermination of inorganic and biological analytes on the basis of carbon paste, screen-printed carbon and boron-doped diamond electrodes, as well as design, automation and data handling with small analytical devices using microprocessors. He has published around 200 full papers and has presented about 200 contributions at international conferences. These activities have resulted in more than 3100 citations. Dr. Kalcher has received numerous guest professor position offers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Poland, Slovenia, and Thailand.

Résumé
This book presents an exhaustive overview of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for the analysis and monitoring of the most important analytes in the environmental field, in industry, in treatment plants and in environmental research. The chapters give the reader a comprehensive, state-of-the-art picture of the field of electrochemical sensors suitable to environmental analytes, from the theoretical principles of their design to their implementation, realization and application.
The first three chapters discuss fundamentals, and the last three chapters cover the main groups of analytes of environmental interest.

Contenu
Section 1

Environmental analysis

Chapter 1

Introduction to Environmental Electroanalysis

Chapter 2

Soil

Chapter 3

Water

Chapter 4

Atmosphere

Chapter 5

Biosphere

Chapter 6

Extraterrestrial

Section 2

Fundamental Concepts of Sensors and Biosensors

Chapter 7

Electrochemical Sensors and Biosensors

Chapter 8

Electrochemical Sensors in Environmental Analysis

Chapter 9

Potentiometric Sensors

Chapter 10

Controlled potential techniques in amperometric sensing

Chapter 11

Biosensors on Enzymes, Tissues and Cells

Chapter 12

DNA Biosensors

Chapter 13

Immunosensors

Chapter 14

Other types of sensors: impedance-based sensors, FET sensors, acousticsensors

Section 3

Sensor Electrodes and Practical Concepts

Chapter 15

Macro-, Micro- and Nanoelectrodes

Chapter 16

Electrode materials (Bulk Materials and Modification)

Chapter17

Nanosized materials in amperometric sensors

Chapter 18

Electrochemical Sensors Practical Approaches

Chapter19

Gas Sensors

Section 4

Sensors with Advanced Concepts

Chapter 20

Sensor arrays - Arrays of micro- and nanoelectrodes

Chapter 21

Sensors and Lab on Chip

Chapter 22

Electronic Noses

Chapter23

Remote Sensing