Surfactant Sensors for Analysis of Toxic Chemicals

There is a growing demand for continuous technical/technological improvements in different applications including the sensing field. Diverse types of sensing methods and sensors have been developed, for the detection of distinct analytes, while possessing necessary characteristics like high sensitivity, specific selectivity, flexibility, repeatability, and so on. Among various sensing methods, the electrochemical sensing method is a low-cost and high-performance method that has electrodes which convert the chemical interactions into an electrical output. Besides, this method also employs a variety of materials to modify the surface of the electrodes to enhance the chemical interactions between the electrodes and the analytes for better detection. Recently, surfactants have gained a special attention in the electrochemical sensing—either being used as an electrode material (individually/in combination with other materials) or as a supporting material in electrolytes—as they can improve the overall detection performance. Regardless of many reviews, there is still a lack of investigations that study the usage of surfactants in toxic chemical analysis. So, in this work, we have mainly discussed about the utilization of major surfactants like cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) for detecting the toxic chemicals, especially phenolic/benzene based chemicals through electrochemical sensing process.