Carbon Dots Applications in Electrochemical and Electrochemiluminescence Sensors: Some Examples of Pathogen Sensors

Abstract

The ongoing worldwide pandemic of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has revealed that simple, fast, low-cost, reliable, and portable sensor systems should be developed immediately. Electrochemical and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) based pathogen sensors are promising alternatives to conventional methods due to several advantages including in situ and fast response time, high sensitivity, low cost, being portable, easy-to-operate and simple to construct using different receptors including, antibody, enzyme, DNA, aptamer, etc. Carbon dots/graphene quantum dots have been used as labels, electrode material, ECL luminophores, electrode modification materials, amplifier, reaction catalysts to increase sensitivity and selectivity of electrochemical and ECL sensors. In this mini-review, the latest applications of carbon dots in electrochemical and ECL based sensors are summarized and some examples of pathogen sensors are given.