Chapter 16: Fluorescent Platforms for Environmental Sensing

Fluorescent sensors have proved to be useful for environmental monitoring of chemical pollutants and other substances that can cause harm to society and the natural world. Industrial advances since the 19th century have led to a significant increase in polluting substances in the air, water and land. Currently, the most common methods for detecting environmental pollutants include inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP–MS), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Although sensitive, these techniques involve the use of large and expensive instruments operated by specially trained personnel, limiting their availability in places other than major cities. Fluorescent sensing platforms provide an attractive alternative to these techniques, as high sensitivity can be achieved while using much cheaper and smaller instrumentation, such as benchtop spectrometers, or even portable devices. In this chapter, we present highlights from the vast array of fluorescent platforms developed for environmental sensing, with a particular focus on examples that have been successfully applied to studies in the field.