Advances in Biosensors Based on Electrospun Micro/Nanomaterials for Food Quality Control and Safety

The food industry needs fast, sensitive, simple, and low-cost techniques to ensure the safety and quality of food products throughout all the stages from production to dispatch. The application of different types of biosensors to monitor safety and quality of food has an increasing importance to meet these requirements. Electrospun nanomaterials produced by electrospinning technology have high potential for use in the development of biosensors due to their characteristic features such as a high surface area-to-volume ratio, controllable porosity, and interconnectivity. The large surface area of electrospun nanofibers provides the abundant active sites for immobilization of biomolecules and active species. Furthermore, electrospun nanofibers can be further functionalized by incorporation of nanomaterials within polymer solution or after electrospinning process to improve sensitivity, stability, and selectivity of biosensors. Recent studies show that electrospun fibers are promising for the design of the biosensor platform in many areas such as clinical, biomedical, and environmental fields, but there are limited number of studies for their use in food applications. This chapter aims to present the recent progress regarding the development of electrospun nanofibers-based electrochemical biosensors in monitoring food safety and quality, such as detection of pesticides, pathogens, and toxins, both detection and quantification of food components, and process control.