Novel mesoporous silicas as electrochemical biosensors

Abstract

Mesoporous silicas (MPS) have been widely used as electrode modifier for electrochemical biosensors due to their attractive properties such as unique structure and high pore volume containing large number of widely accessible active centers, tailored pore size for different biomolecules, and good biocompatibility. These properties have been intelligently combined to improve the response and sensitivity of the resulting modified electrodes and to design novel electrochemical biosensor for electrocatalytic reaction and detection. This up-to-date review summarizes the recent progresses made in the electrochemical biosensors by application of MPS modified electrodes and introduces advantages (for examples, their novel structure, functionalized by different organic or inorganic groups with different pore size that can simultaneously fit with different proteins etc) of some novel MPS that have been synthesized in literature. The outlook and successful realization for the development of MPS in electrochemical biosensors requires proper control of their chemical and physical properties and surface functionalization. © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.