Recent advances in carbon material-based electrochemical sensors for the detection of pesticide residues.

Residues of various pesticides, such as organophosphates, carboxylate esters, organic chlorides, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, and herbicides, have caused serious environmental pollution and human health problems. Therefore, developing efficient sensors for pesticide residue detection is of great significance. Compared with other chromatographic, optical or spectroscopic techniques, electrochemical analysis methods possess the characteristics of high sensitivity, easy operation, and low cost, showing good application prospects. Carbon-based materials, especially nanoscale carbon materials, have unique electrical, chemical, and physical properties, superior conductivity and excellent electrocatalytic activity, making them excellent electrode modified materials for high-performance electrochemical sensors. This review summarizes the significant research progress of electrochemical sensors based on carbon-based composite materials in the past five years according to their electrochemical analysis applications toward different pesticide categories. Furthermore, the differences in the structure, functions, and pesticide detection mechanism of carbon-based materials in these research works are discussed in detail.