Diamond-based nanostructured materials for detection of water contaminants

Abstract

Sustainability is presently one of the most heard watchwords. Water environment is of great importance to all living beings and climate changes, with cleaning and preservation of our largest natural resource as the number one priority. It can only be attained if environmental conscience is put into practice and, involuntarily or not, the scientific community inherited the additional responsibility to cope with the urgency of this matter. This chapter offers a closer look at diamond-based nanostructured materials for detection of water contaminants. This group of synthetic materials has remarkable electrochemical properties towards sensing and analysis of water pollutants such as heavy metals, pesticides or pharmaceutical compounds. Moreover, doped-diamond thin films provide endless applications as electrodes in environmental monitoring but also as strong tools already being applied in environmental remediation. Diamond-based nanostructured electrodes are suitable for the wide range of electrochemical techniques providing fast, straightforward, sensitive, reproducible and robust means of electroanalysis. The versatility of these electrodes also enables in situ and real time application as sensitive and stable sensors also if being tested for determination of contaminants in complex water matrices.