Ensuring food and water safety using magnetic mesoporous silica nanomaterials-based biosensors

The recognition and removal of contaminants in food and water have attracted intensive research over the last two decades. Despite attempts by conventional analytical techniques, including physical, chemical, and biological methods, these approaches suffer from various limitations, such as requiring expert operators and complex sample preparation and clean-up. Recently, magnetic mesoporous silica nanomaterials (MMSNMs) have attracted great attention as a promising nanomaterial for the identification and removal of contaminants in food and water driven by two concepts. Firstly, the presence of magnetic nanomaterials in the structure of mesoporous silica nanomaterials can not only increase conductivity but also enhance the ability to capture various targets due to the functional groups on their surface, significantly improving the detection of water/food contaminants. Secondly, the magnetic separation characteristic of MMSNMs can be employed to remove contaminants in water. This review aims to present state-of-the-art advances and technological breakthroughs in MMSNMs fabrication such as sol-gel, ethanol reflux, and co-polymerization and their applications in food/water safety analysis. In addition, the development of MMSNM substrates for adsorption-based removal of water contaminants is explored. Finally, the working strategies, role of MMSNMs, advantages, and limitations of the research are discussed, followed by presenting the challenges and future trends.