Development of nanotechnology-based sensors for monitoring environmental pollutants and their potential impact on biodiversity conservation

Abstract

Living organisms are facing existential threats from pollution as displayed by those that served as bioindicators in ecosystem. Call for appropriate monitoring systems is required to put at bay terrible damage from pollution fall out. There is need to design nanotechnology-based sensors for monitoring and detection of pollutants’ presence, level and harmful effects in the ecosystem. Technological advancement of nanobiosensors in comparison to conventional biosensors is owing to their nanomaterials’ flexibility with advance novelty in development of nanobiosensor. Of many metallic nanoparticles, gold nanoparticle is one of the most suitable candidates for the design of nanobiosensor to detect and monitor pollutant levels of diverse organisms. This is owing to AuNPs’ ability to capture analyte molecules because its electrical/ optical possessions are used to intensify signals which are relative to the analyte concentration. There is a need for better selection and interconnectedness of appropriate gold nanomaterials and transducers could offer better efficient AuNP based biosensors as the later has the capacity of converting biological signals from AuNP based biosensorinto digital signals for further interpretation and analysis. More so, since development of this handy instrument of multi-tasking capability is inexpensive, safer and non-toxic, it could offer a lot in biodiversity conservation programs.