Recent Development on the Electrochemical Detection of Selected Pesticides: A Focused Review

Abstract

Pesticides are heavily used in agriculture to protect crops from diseases, insects, and weeds. However, only a fraction of the used pesticides reaches the target and the rest slips through the soil, causing the contamination of ground- and surface water resources. Given the emerging interest in the on-site detection of analytes that can replace traditional chromatographic techniques, alternative methods for pesticide measuring have recently encountered remarkable attention. This review gives a focused overview of the literature related to the electrochemical detection of selected pesticides. Here, we focus on the electrochemical detection of three important pesticides; glyphosate, lindane and bentazone using a variety of electrochemical detection techniques, electrode materials, electrolyte media, and sample matrix. The review summarizes the different electrochemical studies and provides an overview of the analytical performances reported such as; the limits of detection and linearity range. This article highlights the advancements in pesticide detection of the selected pesticides using electrochemical methods and point towards the challenges and needed efforts to achieve electrochemical detection suitable for on-site applications.