Photoelectrochemical (Bio)sensors for Biological, Food, and Environmental Analysis

Dear Colleagues,

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) (bio)sensors are a new class of analytical devices operating on the basis of the PEC properties of materials. Because of their merits of such as high sensitivity, easy miniaturization, and simple instruments, PEC (bio)sensors have found widespread applications in disease diagnostics, biomedical research, food security, environmental monitoring, etc.

In the presence of nucleic acids (or their artificial analogues), antibodies, aptamers, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), enzymes, synthetic substrates, and some other affinity receptors as the recognition elements, PEC (bio)sensors can be applied to the (bio)sensing of various biological targets (e.g., nucleic acids, proteins, enzymes, antigens, exosomes, and pathogenic microorganisms), metabolites (e.g., ATP, amino acids, neurotransmitters, and hormones), food/beverage/cosmetic ingredients (e.g., vitamins, additives, antioxidants, mineral salts, toxins, and antibiotic/pesticide residues), environmental pollutants (heavy metal ions, pesticide residues, and toxic gases).

In recent years, great effort has been focused on the development of functional materials with desirable PEC properties (e.g., excellent light-harvesting ability, high photoelectric conversion efficiency, and high mobility of charge carriers). Various photoactive materials include metal oxides (e.g., TiO₂, ZnO, and WO₃), metal chalcogenides (e.g., CdS, Bi₂S₃, and CuS), quantum dots, organic small molecules, and organic polymers. To overcome the possible defects of a single material, versatile composites have been constructed to heterojunctions for improving PEC response sensitivity and selectivity to a specific analyte of interest.

This Special Issue of Chemosensors focusses on the design and development of PEC (bio)sensors, especially their applications in biological, food, and environmental analysis. We look forward to receiving papers on the relevant topics.

Dr. Li Niu
Dr. Qiong Hu
Guest Editors

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