Nanozyme‐encoded luminescent detection for food safety analysis: An overview of mechanisms and recent applications

Abstract With the rapid growth in global food production, delivery, and consumption, reformative food analytical techniques are required to satisfy the monitoring requirements of speed and high sensitivity. Nanozyme‐encoded luminescent detections (NLDs) integrating nanozyme‐based rapid detections with luminescent output signals have emerged as powerful methods for food safety monitoring, not only because of their preeminent performance in analysis, such as rapid, facile, low background signal, and ultrasensitive, but also due to their strong attractiveness for future sensing research. However, the lack of a full understanding of the fundamentals of NLDs for food safety detection technologies limits their further application. In this review, a systematic overview of the mechanisms of NLDs and their applications in the food industry is summarized, which covers the nanozyme‐mimicking types and their luminescent signal generation mechanisms, as well as their applications in monitoring common foodborne contaminants. As demonstrated by previous studies, NLDs are bridging the gap to practical‐oriented food analytical technologies and various opportunities to improve their food analytical performance to be considered in the future are proposed.