Nanomaterials-based electrochemical sensors for the detection of natural antioxidants in food and biological samples: research progress

Antioxidants are healthy substances that are beneficial to the human body and exist mainly in natural and synthetic forms. Among many kinds of antioxidants, the natural antioxidants have great applications in many fields such as food chemistry, medical care, and clinical application. In recent years, many efforts have been made for the determination of natural antioxidants. Nano-electrochemical sensors combining electrochemistry and nanotechnology have been widely used in the determination of natural antioxidants due to their unique advantages. Therefore, a large number of nanomaterials such as metal oxide, carbon materials, and conducting polymer have attracted much attention in the field of electrochemical sensors due to their good catalytic effect and stable performance. This review mainly introduces the construction of electrochemical sensors based on different nanomaterials, such as metallic nanomaterials, metal oxide nanomaterials, carbon nanomaterials, metal–organic frameworks, polymer nanomaterials, and other nanocomposites, and their application to the detection of natural antioxidants, including ascorbic acid, phenolic acids, flavonoid, tryptophan, citric acid, and other natural antioxidants. In the end, the limitations of the existing nano-sensing technology, the latest development trend, and the application prospect for various natural antioxidant substances are summarized and analyzed. We expect that this review will be helpful to researchers engaged in electrochemical sensors.Graphical abstract