Electrochemical Sensing Techniques for Pharmaceutical Contaminants Detection

Pharmaceutical residues in water, soil and biological fluids pose significant risks to ecosystems and human health even at trace concentrations. Electrochemical sensing has emerged as a versatile platform for rapid, on-site detection of diverse drug classes, offering high sensitivity, selectivity and affordability. By exploiting redox properties of target molecules, voltammetric and amperometric methods translate chemical events at an electrode surface into measurable electrical signals. Advances in electrode materials—from carbon allotropes and metal oxides to molecularly imprinted polymers and chiral selectors—have yielded enhanced electrocatalytic activity, lowered detection limits and improved anti-fouling performance. Nanostructured modifiers such as graphene derivatives, metal sulphide nanosheets and doped titania amplify surface area and electron-transfer kinetics, enabling quantification down to nanomolar or even picomolar levels. Integration with portable potentiostats and microfluidic flow cells further supports real-time monitoring in environmental and clinical settings. Current trends include the development of chiral electrochemical interfaces for enantiomer discrimination, multiplexed platforms for simultaneous multi-drug analysis and robust sensor architectures for continuous field deployment. Collectively, these innovations underpin a global movement towards decentralised, cost-effective surveillance of pharmaceutical pollutants.

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Electrochemical Sensing Techniques for Pharmaceutical Contaminants Detection publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in electrochemical sensing techniques for pharmaceutical contaminants detection across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Voltammetry: Electroanalytical method measuring current as potential is varied to characterise redox behaviour of analytes.

Cyclic voltammetry (CV): A voltammetric technique where potential is swept forward and reverse to probe electrochemical kinetics and mechanisms.

Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV): A pulse technique applying incremental potential steps to enhance sensitivity and resolution in trace analysis.

Electrocatalysis: The acceleration of electrochemical reactions at an electrode surface through catalytic materials.

Limit of detection (LOD): The lowest analyte concentration that produces a distinguishable signal above background noise.

Enantiomer: One of two mirror-image forms of a chiral molecule, which may exhibit distinct biological activity.

References

1. Thiolated Chiral Naphthalene Diimide Derivatives as Effective Selectors of the β‐Blocker Atenolol Enantiomers. Advanced Functional Materials (2024).
2. Optimization of Electrochemical Sensitivity in Anticancer Drug Quantification through ZnS@CNS Nanosheets: Synthesis via Accelerated Sonochemical Methodology. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry (2024).
3. Chemically reduced graphene oxide sheets for voltammetric determination of ciprofloxacin in biological fluids and pharmaceutical formulations. Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances (2023).