ABSTRACT
Current trends in food analysis are focused on fast application, easy to use, and cheap biosensor technologies that are able to detect various compounds with high sensitivity and selectivity connected with food quality and safety. The nanoscale systems are considered as the most promising elements in biosensor construction. These nanostructures have dimensions between 1 and 100 nm (Vaddiraju et al. 2010). Among them, the quantum dots (QDs), nanoparticles of various origin (metal, polymer), nanowires, carbon and metal oxides (e.g., zinc oxide [ZnO]), nanotubes, or nanorods, and graphene are among the most investigated. The materials of nanodimensions possess unique physical properties such as enhanced plasticity (Koch et al. 1999), substantial changes in thermal (Rieth et al. 2000) and optical properties (Polman and Atwater 2005), enhanced reactivity and catalytic properties (Bell 2003), fast electron and ion transport (Kim et al. 2009), as well as specic quantum mechanical properties (Loss 2009). The nanomaterials can be functionalized by various biomolecules such as enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid/ribonucleic acid (DNA/RNA) aptamers, and bio-or articial receptors that make them suitable for the detection of various substances such as food toxins, bacteria, and other compounds important in food analysis.
