Biosensor Constructs for the Monitoring of Persistent Emerging Pollutants in Environmental Matrices

Water and soil contamination represents a global environmental concern that severely affects food and water security, leading to an increased interest in the detection of contaminants in environmental samples. Conventional detection techniques possess high sensitivity; however, they are not able to perform cost-effective, rapid, on-site, and real-time analysis. In this context, biosensors have demonstrated their effectiveness for an accurate, on-site, and real-time detection of different pollutants, including heavy metals, pharmaceutical pollutants, pesticides, microplastics, and biological contaminants. Furthermore, among the various components of a biosensor, the bioreceptors are highly relevant since they are responsible for detecting the contaminants. Therefore, different receptors, including cells, antibodies, aptamers, enzymes, and nanozymes, have been explored in recent times, exhibiting excellent performances. In this review, the most recent advances in each type of biosensor─cell-based, antibody-based, aptamer-based, enzyme-based, and nanozyme-based─are discussed in detail to demonstrate their capacity to detect an ample range of pollutants. Finally, the review compares the different strategies and their current challenges and to suggest possible research directions.