Recent advances in nanomaterial-enabled screen-printed electrochemical sensors for heavy metal detection

Heavy metal ions, one of the most important pollutants today, widely exist in the environment, and can cause different degrees of damage to the ecological environment and human body. In the face of the increasingly severe situation of heavy metal pollution, it is urgent to develop a rapid, robust, sensitive, and convenient method for heavy metal ions detection. Compared with the traditional detection methods, the screen-printed electrochemical sensor based on nanomaterials has the advantages of rapid detection speed, high sensitivity, high selectivity, and high stability, which make it become the preferred method for the detection of heavy metal ions. This review presents the recent progress in the field of heavy metal ions determination using various nanomaterials-enabled screen-printed electrochemical sensors. The fabrication strategy and analytical performance of carbon nanomaterials (such as carbon nanotubes and graphene), metal nanomaterials (such as gold nanoparticles and silver nanoparticles), and metal oxide nanomaterials (such as Fe3O4 nanoparticles and Bi2O3 nanoparticles)-enabled disposable sensors for electrochemical determination of heavy metal ions are summarized systematically. In addition, the application of these sensors in real samples for the analysis of heavy metal ions is discussed in detail, and the future development in this field is also provided.