Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
new signal transduction technologies in their manufacture. Because of their size,
nanoprobes, nanosensors and other nanosystems are revolutionizing the fields of
biological and chemical analysis. Particularly, the ability to tailor the structure and
size and thus the properties of nanomaterials presents excellent prospects for
enhancing the performance of the bioanalytical assay and designing novel sensing
systems (Viswanathan and Radecki
2008
). Biosensors are used for a wide range of
applications within biotechnology, engineering fields, chemistry, physical sciences,
etc. There has been a steadily growing use of biosensor technology for the detection
of food contaminants such as food dyes, processing contaminants, veterinary drugs,
marine toxins and mycotoxins in the early 1990s. Other biosensing technologies
such as piezoelectric and electrochemical have also been employed for the analysis
of small-molecule contaminants (Huet et al.
2010
). According to studies, more than
6,000 biosensor-related research papers were published between 1984 and 1997
(Luong et al.
2008
), and the annual worldwide investment in biosensor research and
development was estimated to be US
300 m (Weetall
1999
). Amongst reported
biosensor platforms, the optical biosensor appeared to be the most popular, and by
the end of the twentieth century, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) optical bio-
sensors had been greatly exploited with more than 75 % of associated research
papers dealing with applications related to this technology platform (Homola
et al.
1999
). In a research of the 1999 commercial SPR-biosensor literature, it
was reported that nearly 90 % of the 1,000 publications reported used Biacore
instrumentation for research purposes. Other surveys performed in 2007 and 2008
reported 1,179 and 1,413 published scientific papers including the application of
optical biosensors, respectively (Rich and Myszka
2008
,
2010
; Situ et al.
2010
).
Some nanotechnological applications in the food industry are improving the
bioavailability, absorption and uptake of supplements and nutrients in the body,
producing new or improved tastes, and textures of foods, improving food-
packaging materials, developing nanosensors that could give information about
the spoilage or freshness of products during transportation, storage of food prod-
ucts. According to some studies, nanofood applications can be classified as (Bugusu
and Bryant
2007
; Otles and Yalcin
2013
):
$
• Food quality and safety: nanosensors (nano-noses and nano-tongues) and anti-
microbials (silver nanoparticles, metal oxides)
• Food packaging: biosensors, antimicrobials and nanocomposites (polymers,
silicate nanoclays)
• Food processing: membrane separation systems, fractionation systems and
encapsulation and delivery systems
• Food ingredients: nanoemulsions, bioactives, flavours, micronutrients and
antimicrobials
Food preservation and production have become very important due to the need
to store food for long periods, to prevent microbiological and chemical deteriora-
tion, pathogenic contamination and insect infestation. Food quality control is
essential both for the food industry and for consumer protection. In the food
industry, the quality of a product is evaluated through periodic microbiological
