Applications of carbon-based conductive nanomaterials in biosensors

•Biosensors are versatile structures for various biomedical applications.•Natural and unnatural analytes can be detected and measured by biosensors.•Some properties of Conductive materials make them suitable to use in biosensors.•Graphene oxide, carbon nanotube, carbon dot and diamond are conductive nanocarbons. Due to the interesting physicochemical and biological properties of carbon-based nanomaterials and their large number of derivatives, these nanomaterials are going to be the best and first choice of scientists and industries. One of the attractive research area in which carbon-based nanomaterials have many applications, is the science of detection and measurement called biosensors. Some special properties like large surface-to-volume ratio, high electrical conductivity, chemical stability, strong mechanical strength, easy functionalization, biocompatibility, and biodegradability make these nanomaterials suitable to employ in biosensors transducers for improving signal processing. Recently, these biosensors have been used widely in the monitoring of disease progression, environmental pollution detection and measurement, food control, and drug discovery. Considering these substantial properties, using the carbon-based nanomaterials led to higher sensitivity with the lower limit of detection, wide linear range detection, and reusable sensors than conventional ones. This review is an overview of the most recent progress in the development of biosensors based on wide variety of carbon nanomaterials, including graphene, graphene oxide, and reduced graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, carbon dots, diamond, fullerene, carbon nanofibers, carbon nanohorns, nanoporous carbon, nano carbon black and their composites. In addition to the structure of the biosensor, an attempt has been made to discuss the multiple analytes such as glucose, antibody, dopamine, proteins, nucleic acids (DNA, RNA), and drugs which detected and measured by these biosensors.