Recent progress in the electrochemical quantification of nitrophenols

Nitrophenols (NPs) are a class of highly toxic compounds that cause serious environmental pollution, high water solubility, and hindered biodegradation. Therefore, the detection of NPs is of great significance for assessing environmental pollution and health risks. Traditional detection methods struggle to avoid the limitations of high detection cost and long cycle time, relying on large instruments that are difficult to operate and cannot be detected in the field. Electrochemical sensors have the outstanding advantages of low cost, fast response, easy miniaturization, simple operation, and in situ detection, which make them an ideal detection method for developing a source control of NP pollution. This paper is dedicated to summarizing and analyzing the progress of recent research in electrochemical sensors for the detection of NPs, which can be classified into four categories based on different sensitive elements: nanomaterial sensors, molecularly imprinted sensors, enzyme sensors, and other sensors. Their basic characteristics and respective developments are introduced, and the future development direction and challenges of NP electrochemical sensors are discussed herein.