ENVIRONMENTAL BIOSENSORS A STATUS REPORT

摘要

The environmental analytical community continues to search for portable analytical techniques that can give reliable, on-site results for a variety of matrices and a host of analytes. In the 1970s, portable gas cbromatographs were developed that brought smaller, more rugged versions of laboratory models to newly identified hazardous waste sites. In the late 1980s, analytical chemists tapped the rich resources of clinical laboratories and developed immuno-chemical techniques for an ever-increasing list of environmental analytes. Recently, researchers have investigated biosensors and ancillary technologies for environmental applications, especially those that require continuous monitoring. Biosensors are beginning to move from the proof-of-concept stage to field testing and commercialization in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Several U.S. federal agencies are evaluating the technology for studies of ecological and human exposure. Biosensors have potential for continuous and in situ applications, such as downhole or perimeter groundwater surveillance, and they are suitable for a variety of matrices including soil extracts, ground-water, blood, and urine. Some biosensors can operate in high concentrations of organic solvents (e.g., methanol and acetonitrile) and can be used for in situ monitoring of contaminated organic media or process streams that contain mixed organic wastes. They can be constructed from a wide array of immunochemicals and even genetically engineered microorganisms, and they can be configured to be reversible.