Recent advances in the development of biosensor for phenol: a review

Phenol and its derivatives are widespread contaminants whose sources are both natural and industrial. Phenol is massively produced and used as a starting material for synthetic polymers and fibers. Although phenolic compounds play important biochemical and physiological roles in living systems, their accumulation in the environment as a result of intensive human activity may result in drastic ecological problem. Various analytical techniques are available for the detection of phenol in environmental samples. But they need complex sample pre-treatment so as are time consuming, costly and use heavy devices. On the other hand a biosensor is a device that gives rapid detection, cost effective and easy. A review study was carried out to accumulate the possible biosensors for the detection of phenolic compounds in environmental samples. A number of biological components including microorganisms, enzymes, antibodies, antigens, nucleic acids etc. can be used for the construction of biosensors that was found to detect phenolic compounds. Of all type of biological components microorganisms and enzymes are mostly used. The microorganisms are Pseudomonas, Moraxella, Arthrobacter, Rhodococcus, and Trichosporon. The most used enzymes are tyrosinase, peroxidase, laccase, glucose dehydrogenase, cellobiose dehydrogenase etc. Antibody sensors can detect a very trace level. The biorecognition of DNA biosensors occur by hybridization of DNA. Biosensors are found to work well when the biological sensing element is immobilized. A variety of immobilization techniques were found to use as adsorption, covalent binding, entrapment, cross-linking etc. For immobilization the matrices used was polyvinyl alcohol, Osmium complex, nafion/sol-gel silicate, chitosan, silica gel etc.