Application of sensing methods in agricultural sector for the detection of pesticide residues: An overview

Pesticides negatively affect the environment and human health, primarily through bioaccumulation in the food system. The detection of pesticides in the agriculture system is needed to reduce their negative impacts. Furthermore, there are several conventional methods such as chromatography, etc. available to detect and quantify the different types of pesticides, but these methods have limitations including higher cost, requirement of complex methodology, expertise and specialized gear and are inappropriate for real-time field screening. To overcome the challenges posed by conventional methods, nanotechnological approaches are gaining huge popularity in agriculture sector as nano-sensing strategies played an important role for remediation, detection and pollution control in the environment. Nano-sensors have potential advantages such as low cost, selectivity, sensitivity, robustness and real-time monitoring of the pesticides present in the food system and helps in improving the crop productivity management. Therefore, the present study was conducted to explore the importance and role of nanotechnology approaches in the agriculture sector for real time detection of pesticides. This review also describes the different types of biosensors such as optical, enzymatic, colorimetric, electro-chemical, potentiometric and immune sensors while highlighting their mechanism and nanoparticle interactions in the agriculture sector for pesticide detection. The recent study on the development of low-cost nanoparticle based nano sensors for pesticide detection is focused on gathering detailed information using databases such as Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science, etc.