Electrochemical monitoring of persistent toxic substances using metal oxide and its composite nanomaterials: Design, preparation, and application

Persistent toxic substances (PTS) provide a huge challenge for human and ecosystem health for the reasons of their properties of high-toxic, bio-accumulation and recalcitrance. As a result, effective monitoring of PTS is of great significance. In recent years, electrochemical determination technology has attracted a large amount of interest with the merits of its simple equipment, high sensitivity, low limit of detection (LOD) and good stability characteristic. It is well-known that the development of electrochemical analysis was significantly promoted with the emergence of nanomaterials. Many nanomaterials, especially metal oxides based, exhibit excellent electrochemical performance on detection owing to their distinguished physicochemical properties. However, it is hard for single metal oxide nanomaterials to achieve efficient and non-interfering detection of PTS in complex real environments. The construction of nanocomposites (NCs) that overcome the lack of nature of single materials is a greatly promising method. As such, we basically introduced the recent developments in electrochemical detection of PTS using metal oxide nanomaterials and their composite nanomaterials from the points of view of design, preparation and application over the past few years. The review will be helpful to know the progress of electrochemical detection and to design novel nanomaterials with excellent electrochemical performance. •Electrochemical monitoring of persistent toxic substances.•Metal oxide and its composite nanomaterials for design of sensing interfaces.•Perspectives on mechanism of used nanomaterials.