Advanced Food Analysis Tools: Biosensors and Nanotechnology

Advanced Food Analysis Tools: Biosensors and Nanotechnology provides the latest information on innovative biosensors and tools that are used to perform on-site detection tests. Food safety is a global health goal, with the food industry providing testing and guidance to keep the population safe. Food contamination is mainly caused by harmful substances and biological organisms, including bacteria, viruses and parasites, which can all have a major impact on human health. The lack of specific, low-cost, rapid, sensitive and easy detection of harmful compounds has resulted in the development of the electrochemical technologies that are presented in this book.

• Includes the most recent and innovative biosensor and nanotechnology for the food industry
• Applies the most current trends in food analysis research
• Presents opportunities for unique electrochemical tools to enhance performance

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Sep 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9780128223956

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Chapter 1: Biosensor and nanotechnology

Abstract

Nowadays, nanotechnology has attracted a great deal of attention and captured the vivid imagination that can change our outlook and expectations by providing us with alternatives to solve global problems. Nanotechnology-driven strategies represent a revolutionary path to technological advancement, focusing on nanometer-scale materials with a wide range of real-world applications. Nanotechnology plays a significant role in growing technology, which involves developing innovative scale techniques from individual molecules or atoms to submicron dimensions that can produce new products, formulate different chemicals and materials, and improve the current instrument performance system. The integration of nanomaterials into biosensor systems leads to lower material and energy consumption, reduced environmental damage, and environmental remediation. It is a broad field of cross-disciplinary research that contributes to a basic knowledge related to the optical, electrical, magnetic, and mechanical characteristics of nanostructures that widely applicable to the next generation of functional materials. The discovery and use of carbon nanomaterials and nanostructure provide an alternative to research challenges that allowed the introduction of new technologies in many research areas. This chapter includes a summary of nanotechnology, nanomaterials, and biosensors. It also summarizes existing knowledge of crucial aspects and emphasizes the application of biosensors and nanotechnology.

Keywords

Nanotechnology; Nanomaterials; Nanostructure; Biosensor; Bioengineering; Biotechnology; Materials application; Organic compound; Electrochemistry

Introduction

Nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field of study that plays a significant role in the advancement of biosensors. Nanotechnology-enabled products are increasingly ubiquitous and one of the most exciting future innovations that have led to a significant advancement in current nutrition and food sciences. It has already implemented some of its applications in analytical techniques and other technologies (Weiss, Takhistov, & McClements, 2006). In this new era, nanotechnology has a significant impact on many areas, particularly in the food industry, such as the advancement of novel food packaging materials into nanodelivery systems, along with analytical control of the entire food chain. Nanotechnology is an alternative technique because the increasingly urgent demand for new, fast, efficient, and accurate information on the quality and safety of food products has led to more selective and sensitive analytical methods (Hosnedlova, Sochor, Baron, Bjørklund, & Kizek, 2019; Peng, Zhang, Aarts, & Dullens, 2018).

Biosensors and nanotechnologies are evolving rapidly in current fields, including food, agricultural, biomedical, medicinal, and pharmaceutical sciences, as well as catalysis and environmental remediation. Biosensors are analytical devices that convert the biological response to electrical signals, which are considered promising devices because of their unique properties such as high sensitivity, ease of miniaturization, and fast response. The sensitivity and efficiency of biosensors are enhanced by the use of nanomaterials (NSMs) that have made it possible to implement a range of new signal transduction technologies in biosensors.

In recent years, the application of NSMs in sensor technology and the evolution of analytical tools has significantly increased the portability of the analytical instrument. Sensing techniques based on NSMs such as the employment of nanoparticles (NPs) and other nanostructures to improve efficiency and specificity measurement, as well as facilitate sample preparation (Bulbul, Hayat, & Andreescu, 2015). Portable tools capable of analyzing different elements due to their submicron dimensions, nanosensors, nanoprobes, and other nanosystems have made it possible to test in vivo easily and quickly (Jianrong, Yuqing, Nongyue, Xiaohua, & Sijiao, 2004). This widespread use of nanotechnology and biosensors continues to drive the need to consider potential relationships on human and environmental health to assure efficient advancement. This chapter reviews the general principles and application of biosensors and nanotechnology that influence different aspects of human life.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology can be defined as manufacture or technology that interacts with nanoscale materials and clusters of nanoscale matter in the various aspects of life that occur from a minimal scale range from specific atoms or molecules to submicron dimensions and the incorporation of the resulting nanostructures into larger systems (Bhushan, 2017; Gago, Llorente, Junquera, & Domingo, 2009). Nanotechnology involves interdisciplinary research, NSMs, and the use of physical, chemical, and biological processes in conjunction with material engineering, biotechnology, and industrial processing technology. Nanotechnology has now emerged as a multidisciplinary area in our society, where gaining a basic knowledge of the electrical, optical, magnetic, biological, medicinal, and mechanical properties of nanostructures expects to provide the next generation of functional materials with broad applications  (Schaming & Remita, 2015). Due to their unique mechanical, optoelectronic, and physicochemical characteristics, NSMs can boost today’s technology or open the way for new technologies in different areas such as electrochemical biosensing (Howes, Chandrawati, & Stevens, 2014; Vasilescu, Hayat, Gáspár, & Marty, 2018).

Nanotechnology is a new and emerging innovation that introduces novel ways for developing new products, formulating new chemicals and materials, and updating current equipment generation with better performance equipment, leading in lower material and energy consumption and diminished environmental damage, and also promising environmental remediation (Thiruvengadam, Rajakumar, & Chung, 2018). Over the year, several new technologies focused on nanotechnology have been developed to detect a wide range of targets, such as infectious agents, protein biomarkers, nucleic acids, drugs, and cancer cells. Nanotechnology represents an innovative road to technical advancement that relates to nanometer-scale material management. This has the power to transform our perspectives and perceptions and allow us to overcome global problems. The development and use of carbon NSMs have encouraged the development of many new fields like nanomedicine, biosensors, and bioelectronics technology. The application of nanotechnology may also provide approaches to technical and environmental problems in the fields of catalysis, medicine, solar energy conversion, and water treatment (Lv et al., 2018).

Moreover, nanotechnology has become one of the most important inventions and significant developments in reinventing the standard food science and food industry (He & Hwang, 2016). Nanotechnology devices have become extremely useful in biomedicine, and a hybrid science called nanobiotechnology has emerged (Saji, Choe, & Yeung, 2010). Therefore, nanotechnology offers a solution to environmental issues, steps to tackle the relevant issues of materials and energy exchange with the environment as well as potential risks associated with nanotechnology (Lee, Mahendra, & Alvarez, 2010). Nanotechnology has provided excellent tools that allow the processes to be defined in complex biological processes to a degree previously impossible. Nanotechnology has multidimensional impacts on society, which will undoubtedly be discussed for future decades (Baker, Brent, & Thomas, 2009).

Nanomaterials

NSMs are unequivocally classified as a material with an externally and internally dimensioned structure or surface of 100 nm and less. According to this concept, most of the substances around us will classify as NSMs, as nanoscale modulation of their internal structure (Buzea, Pacheco, & Robbie, 2007). They can derive either from combustion, manufacturing, or formed naturally. Many NSMs are NSMs engineered (EN) specifically for several consumer products and processes, some of which have been available for many years or decades (Alagarasi, 2013). The range of commercial products currently available is extensive, including fabrics, cosmetics, sunscreens, appliances, paints, and varnishes that are stain-resistant and wrinkle-free. Additionally, the large surface-to-volume ratio of NSMs is particularly useful in their use in the medical field, which enables cells and active ingredients to bind together.

NSMs composed of metal or nonmetal atoms are classified as metal, organic, or semi-conductive particles smaller than a micrometer. The morphological properties in at least one external dimension or with an internal nanoscale structure. In this way, NSMs, including NPs, nanowires, and nanotubes, have gained interest. NSMs used in nanobiosensors not only helped to deal with issues centered on the sensitivity and detection limit of the instruments but also increased the interfacial reaction due to enhanced immobilization of molecules for biorecognition (Bhattarai & Hameed, 2020).

Hybrid NSMs have lately been looked at as potential therapeutic platforms. This class of NSMs maintains beneficial characteristics of both inorganic and organic components and provides a way to change the nanohybrid properties by combining functional components (García & Uberman, 2019). The hybridization of nanomaterial-based strategies with a microscale system has permitted a new form of biomolecular research along with a high degree of sensitivity that can exploit nanoscale binding processes to distinguish the analytes (Kelley et al., 2014). NSMs with excellent electrical, optical, mechanical, and thermal characteristics have been acknowledged as one of the most innovative technologies in the production of next-generation biosensors for opening new gates (Lan, Yao, Ping, & Ying, 2017). Besides, NSMs also apply in plant security, nutrition, control of farm systems due to their small size, high surface to volume ratio, and unique optical features (Duhan et al., 2017).

Classification and production of nanomaterials

NSMs can be divided into various groups according to structures such as sizes or dimensions; and four types of NSMs are available, including zero-dimensional, one dimensional, two dimensional, and three dimensional (Malhotra & Ali, 2017). Moreover, emerging NSMs and NPs can also be categorized into four categories of materials, including carbon-based materials, metal-based materials, dendrimers, and composites (Jeevanandam, Barhoum, Chan, Dufresne, & Danquah, 2018). The reactivity, strength, and fundamental physical and chemical characteristics of NPs rely on their specific size, shape, and structure, making them suitable for a variety of commercial and domestic applications (Khan, Saeed, & Khan, 2019). NPs can be differentiated by their chemical properties, their ability to carry various ingredients, and their ability to react to either organic or inorganic environmental conditions.

There are also several types of NPs, including nanofibers, nanoemulsions, and nanoclay. The diameter for nanofibers is around 5 nm long and about 15 μm long and is used as a thickener in food and filtering substances. Diversely, nanoemulsions have a diameter ranging from 50 to 500 nm per droplet, giving them rheological properties and differing stability. They are used for stabilizing certain materials, improving viscosity, and encapsulating components for release afterward. On the other hand, nanoclay is generally made of phosphosilicate and used mainly in food packaging, which functions as a barrier against oxygen and carbon dioxide. This nanoclay helps to make the plastic lighter, thinner, and more durable (Zhang & Wei, 2016). The classification of NSMs is summarized in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1

Biosensor

Biosensors are categorized according to the elements of the bioreceptor involved in the investigation and the elements of the physicochemical transduction. The biosensor function can be clarified by the bioreceptor recognizing the target analyte. The desired biological material will be immobilized by traditional methods and will interact with the transducer intimately. The analyte binds to the biological material to form a bound analyte, and the transducer converts the corresponding biological responses into electrical equivalents. A significant output signal will be provided, which contains requisite frequency elements of an input signal as the amplifier responds to the small input signal. The signal processor must additionally store, view, and analyze the amplified signal. In some cases, the analyte is transformed into a product that may be correlated with heat, gas (oxygen), electrons, or hydrogen ions released (Velusamy, Arshak, Korostynska, Oliwa, & Adley, 2010). Fig. 1.1 shows the schematic diagram of the biosensor.

Fig. 1.1 The schematic diagram of biosensors.

Usually, bioreceptors can be classed into five main groups, including enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acid, cells, and bacteriophages. Fig. 1.2 shows a biosensor configuration. The bioreceptors can be identified as the target analytes and corresponding biologically responses then translated them into an equivalent electrical signal by the transducer/electrode. The amplifier in the biosensor reacts to the transducer’s small input signal and produces a large output signal that contains an input signal’s crucial frequency characteristics. A processor will process the amplified signal where the signal can be stored, displayed, and analyzed.

Fig. 1.2 The configuration of biosensors.

Generally, biosensors are classified into three main categories, which are based on receptors, transducers, and nanobiosensors. Biosensors are the preferred tools in the current scenario because of their high sensitivity, safe handling, accuracy, precision, and quick response time (Narsaiah, Jha, Bhardwaj, Sharma, & Ramesh, 2012). Knowledge of chemical and physical changes during the handling, preparing, processing, and storage of food is the basis for the layout and invention of different biosensors. The constructs utilize optical, electrochemical, thermometric, piezoelectric, magnetic, or micromechanical methods to convey the relevant information in the form of a signal (Shandilya et al., 2019).

Classification of biosensors

Biosensors have been broadly used in various scientific areas due to their excellent performance. Biosensors usually can be classified into two major groups based on bioreceptors and transducers as shown in Fig. 1.3. Firstly is a bioreceptor, which refers to the molecular species and acts by utilizing a biochemical mechanism and binds to the target analytes. Bioreceptors are assorted into five major groups, namely, an enzyme, an antibody, biomimetic, nucleic acid, cells, and bacteriophage, which typically used to identify foodborne pathogens (Velusamy et al., 2010).

Fig. 1.3 Classification of the biosensors.

Secondly, transducer-based biosensors can be divided into four main classes such as electrochemical, optical, piezoelectric, and thermometric that extensively practiced in the food industry (Velusamy et al., 2010). Previously, the electrochemical biosensors method showed rapid and ease of miniaturization, cost-effective, compliant with present microfabrication technologies, and have entered numerous markets specifically in antioxidant research (Su, Jia, Hou, & Lei, 2011; Ye, Ji, Sun, Shen, & Sun, 2019). Besides, optical sensors are also the most popular biosensors after electrochemical sensors because of their high detection speed, sensitivity, durability, and the ability to detect multiple analytes (Yoo & Lee, 2016). Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is an example of the optical techniques that commonly used in biosensor production that can determine the presence of a chemical and does not require molecules labeled during the analysis (Alhadrami, 2018; Ziegler & Göpel, 1998).

Besides, nanobiosensors are virtually sensors consisting of NSMs or nanoscaled analytical structures composed of nanoconjugated biological materials such as transduction systems for detecting minuscule amounts of any biological, physical, or chemical analytes. Nanobiosensors performed a significant development intervention in the field of biosensors, which was achievable only because of the wonders of the nanotechnological ramifications of the matter. In many studies, a wide range of biosensing systems using NPs or nanostructures have been investigated (Malik et al., 2013).

From previous work, nanobiosensor reported as nanoscaled analytical frameworks that comprise nanoconjugated biological materials and better suited to identify the miniscule interacting process due to the SPR mechanism that makes a much higher and far more accurate degree of estimation of biological interactions via a nanobiosensor compared to a biosensor (Malik et al., 2013; Shandilya et al., 2019). Besides, nanobiosensor technology is pioneering the healthcare sector, and the food industry even plays a significant role in environmental fields (Pandit, Dasgupta, Dewan, & Prince, 2016). Additionally, advanced nanoscaled sensors can help to achieve higher sensitivity, precision, and multiplexing to clarify the stage and cancer type completely. It will take advantage of all systems such as photoacoustic tomography, Raman spectroscopic imaging, and multimodal imaging.

Application of biosensor and nanotechnology

Biosensors and nanotechnology have been widely used in various research fields such as enzyme-based, tissue-based, immunosensors, DNA biosensors, and thermal and piezoelectric biosensors (Mehrotra, 2016). Until now, in every walk of life, this growing field of biosensors has almost got a stronghold. The current innovations and advancements in this biosensing method are applied in the primary fields of agriculture, medicine, biomedicine, health, and environmental studies and offer better stability and sensitivity compared to conventional techniques (Ali, Najeeb, Ali, Aslam, & Raza, 2017; Ensafi, 2019; Karunakaran, Bhargava, & Benjamin, 2015). Some of the popular fields, including the food industry, used biosensors to monitor their quality and health, to help distinguish between natural and artificial, and biosensors used in the fermentation and saccharification industries to monitor specific concentrations of glucose; in metabolic engineering to permit in vivo control of cell metabolism.

Food industry

Research has contributed to the full benefit of this food industry worldwide, to meet the consumer demands of fresh and nutritious foods (Ali et al., 2017). To ensure the protection of processed foods, the food companies have implemented different methods to overcome the problems that lead to food spoilage and identification and destruction of certain chemicals or biological agents that are responsible for causing specific significant health-related issues. The food industry is the leading group concerned with the existence of pathogenic microorganisms, where failure to detect a pathogen may lead to a terrible impact. Conventional techniques conducting chemical experiments and spectroscopy have human fatigue deficiencies, which are expensive and time-consuming (Amit, Uddin, Rahman, Islam, & Khan, 2017). The nanotechnological strategy can be implemented in the food industry to improve food quality (Dumitriu, de Lerma, Luchian, Cotea, & Peinado, 2018), health, shelf-life, cost, food packaging (Duncan, 2011; Vilarinho, Sanches Silva, Vaz, & Farinha, 2018), nutritional benefits (Sozer & Kokini, 2009), taste characteristics (Duncan, 2011), and the delivery of natural antimicrobials in food (Pinilla, Norena, & Brandelli, 2017).

Biosensors play a significant role in the food industry once it comes to tracking nutrients and screening off biological and chemical pollutants. Throughout the food processing industry, biosensors can be used in the fermentation process; and they can also be employed to identify heavy metals in food and to detect pesticides in juices and wine. Fermentation is an integral part of the food, feed, and biofuels production since the fermentation industries concentrate on process protection and product quality (Mehrotra, 2016). Besides, biosensor has been used in fermentation industries to track the existence of products, biomass, enzymes, antibodies, or by-products from the fermentation process and can indirectly calculate the process state.

Nanotechnology enhances the shelf-life of certain forms of food resources and also ensures a reduction in the amount of food wastage due to microbial infestation (Pradhan et al., 2015). An optical biosensor is a versatile and sensitive tool capable of identifying defective rates of chemicals and biologics and of measuring molecular interactions in situ and in real-time (Nath & Chilkoti, 2002; Rovina, Shaeera, Vonnie, & Yi, 2019). This approach is used in the food industry to detect bacteria directly in foods to detect changes in refractive indices as the cell attaches to the transducer’s immobilized receptor (Pirinçci et al., 2018). Furthermore, Lu and Gunasekaran (2019) developed and manufactured an electrochemical immunosensor for simultaneous identification of two mycotoxins due to the widespread co-contamination of mycotoxins in raw food materials. Besides, Ghasemi-Varnamkhasti et al. (2012) researched on detecting the aging of beer utilizing enzymatic biosensors based on cobalt phthalocyanine, where a strong potential to track the aging of beer throughout storage could be demonstrated. Additionally, enzymatic biosensors are often used in the dairy industry, where a biosensor based on a screen-printed carbon electrode was incorporated into a flow cell to quantify the three organophosphate pesticides in milk (Mishra, Dominguez, Bhand, Muñoz, & Marty, 2012).

Biosensors are used to identify pathogens in foodstuffs. For example, Escherichia coli (E. coli) was detected in vegetables using a potentiometric alternating biosensing method by evaluating changes in the pH caused by ammonia (Arora, Ahmed, Khubber, & Siddiqui, 2018). Additionally, intelligent nutrient control and rapid inspection of biological and chemical contamination are of vital importance for the quality and health of the food. Material science, nanotechnology, electrochemical, and microfluidic systems are moving towards the imminent use of sensing technology on the market (Mehrotra, 2016). For example, glucose control during storage may be altered due to food quality and composition. A luminol electrochemiluminescence-based flow-injection optical fiber biosensor for glucose was identified. The sol–gel process is used to immobilize glucose oxidase (GOx) on a glassy carbon electrode surface (2012). The electrochemistry of immobilized GOx was studied by German, Ramanaviciene, Voronovic, and Ramanavicius (2010) on a graphite chain, altered by gold NPs (AuNPs), which enhanced its sensitivity. Furthermore, sunset yellow (SY) belongs to the azo group, which can contribute to toxicity and photogenic to human health through a high intake of SY in the food industry. To quantify the degree of SY in commercial food products, a simple and highly sensitive electrochemical sensor was developed based on the modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with graphene (GO), multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), gold NPs (AuNPs), and nanocomposite chitosan membrane (CHIT) (Rovina, Siddiquee, & Shaarani, 2017).

Biomedical fields

Within the medical community, diagnostics are central to successful disease prevention or treatment, and the ability to recognize molecular markers linked to diseases is increasingly being researched and significantly extended. Biologic substances such as blood, saliva, or urine are rich in physiological data. Biosensors that can track multiple analytes at the same time would, therefore, be useful for accurate analysis of one’s physiological state (Mazur, Bally, Städler, & Chandrawati, 2017). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) represents the global gold standard in science and clinical diagnostics because of its high specificity, standard configuration, and legibility. Biosensors are the analytical devices that allow molecular interactions to be sensed and converted into an electrical signal which can be detected. Across medical sciences, biosensors are prevalently used to detect infectious diseases. Recent advances in nanotechnology and its applications in the field of biomedicine have led to the development of new technologies in clinical diagnostics (Medawar-Aguilar et al.,