Progress in the Development of Intrinsically Conducting Polymer Composites as Biosensors

• Published in: Macromolecular chemistry and physics Vol. 220; no. 10; pp. 1800561 - n/a
• Main Authors: Prajapati, Deepak G., Kandasubramanian, Balasubramanian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.05.2019; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: biological molecules; Biomolecules; Biosensors; Cholesterol; Conducting polymers; conductive polymer composites; conductive polymers; Cost analysis; Defense industry; Detection; Diagnostic systems; Electron transfer; Environmental monitoring; Food processing industry; Immobilization; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; nanomaterials; Polymer matrix composites; Polymers; Reagents; Review; Reviews; biological molecules; biosensors; conductive polymer composites; nanomaterials; immobilization; conductive polymers
• ISSN: 1022-1352; 1521-3935
• DOI: 10.1002/macp.201800561

Biosensors are analytical devices which find extensive applications in fields such as the food industry, defense sector, environmental monitoring, and in clinical diagnosis. Similarly, intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs) and their composites have lured immense interest in bio‐sensing due to their various attributes like compatibility with biological molecules, efficient electron transfer upon biochemical reactions, loading of bio‐reagent, and immobilization of biomolecules. Further, they are proficient in sensing diverse biological species and compounds like glucose (detection limit ≈0.18 nm), DNA (≈10 pm), cholesterol (≈1 µm), aptamer (≈0.8 pm), and also cancer cells (≈5 pm mL−1) making them a potential candidate for biological sensing functions. ICPs and their composites have been extensively exploited by researchers in the field of biosensors owing to these peculiarities; however, no consolidated literature on the usage of conducting polymer composites for biosensing functions is available. This review extensively elucidates on ICP composites and doped conjugated polymers for biosensing functions of copious biological species. In addition, a brief overview is provided on various forms of biosensors, their sensing mechanisms, and various methods of immobilizing biological species along with the life cycle assessment of biosensors for various biosensing applications, and their cost analysis. Conductive polymer composites are widely employed in fabricating biosensors with different reinforcements such as gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and also hybrid nanocomposites. Thus, working principles, sensing mechanisms, classification, and immobilization techniques of biosensors are discussed in detail. Life cycle assessment of biosensors is also discussed in the final section.