Overview on Nanomaterial Based Sensors for Environmental and Healthcare Applications

The risk related to healthcare and the limitations associated with the biomarker detection in the field of biomedical testing, have created a crisis among the inhabitants. Presently, the diagnosis of diseases is centralized and performed by medical experts. Thus, it is inaccessible for a large section of our society. Apart from healthcare, it is equally important to monitor the environment, which is the primary reason behind most of the health issues. Ever-growing industrialization have become a serious threat for the environment, which in turn deteriorating the quality of health in the society. Increasing rate of pollution demands point-of-care testing devices and sensors to monitor the quality of health and environment. In this regard, the advent of nanoscience and nanotechnology has given an opportunity to develop specific and sensitive sensors for biomedical, environmental and other related applications. A major portion of recent research in one hand is directed towards the development of nanoenabled point-of-care diagnostic devices to detect different diseases at their early stages and on the other hand people are developing sensors to monitor the quality of environment. Different fields such as microfluidics, electronics, and spintronics have been explored to develop such sensors and devices. Herein we briefly review the advancements in these directions. The insight towards the development of different types of sensors would provide a broader outlook in this area and would help in advancing the technology.