Martina Piano

The aim of this Special Issue of the journal Biosensors, “Sensors for Environmental Monitoring and Food Safety”, was to report on the developments and advances in sensors and biosensors to meet the needs of environmental and food analysis

In this study, biosensors based on zinc oxide–copper oxide composite nano-surfaces were prepared using a simple and inexpensive distributed colloidal technique. Combinations of mixed dispersions with volume ratios of 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1 ZnO:CuO were compared. The uniform nano-crystalline sensor surfaces on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Raman Spectroscopy. The ZnO–CuO composite biosensor nano-surfaces showed a significantly increased impedimetric signal compared with pure ZnO nanocrystals, and the maximum output was achieved with a volume ratio of 1:2 ZnO/CuO. The antibody capture of C-reactive protein (CRP) on the nano-surfaces was used to demonstrate the enhanced signal generated with increasing amounts of CuO in the nano-surface.

In recent years, great progress has been made in the development of sensors and biosensors to meet the demands of environmental and food analysis. In this Special Issue, the state of art and the future trends in the field of environmental and food analyses have been explored. A total of seven papers (three research and four review papers) are included. These are focused on the fabrication and detection of contaminates such as heavy metals, pesticides and food components, including uric acid and 3-hydroxybutyrate. Included in this Issue is a paper dedicated to the experimental determination of the electroactive area of screen-printed electrodes, an important parameter in the development of such sensors.