Environmental Sensors in Extreme Environments

Abstract

Many potentially harmful chemicals, released by industries and human activities, can contaminate water, soil, or air, and further impact the environment and public health. Real-time and in situ monitoring of various contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides, pathogens, toxins, particulate matters, radioisotopes, volatile organic compounds, crude oil, and agricultural chemicals at low levels is mandatory in the fields of industrial plants, automotive technologies, medicine and health, water and air quality control, natural soil/land/sea, and so forth. Consequently, the monitoring of environmental pollutants became a priority. For this aim, sensors have captivated the attention of many scientists in modern times by virtue of their eco-friendliness, cost-effectiveness, miniaturization ability, and rapidness. Environmental samples, however, are very complex and unexpectedly relative to other ecosystems. Thus far, environmental sensors have been developed with greater sensitivity, simpler and more efficient detection, better environmental adaptation and etc. for pollutant detection.