CHAPTER 2: Graphitic Carbon Nitride-based Chemiluminescent and Electrochemiluminescent Sensors

Over the past few decades, there has been a huge advancement in the fabrication and synthetic pathways of nanomaterials and their application as sensitive and specific biosensors for sensing a diversity of samples (for instance metal ions, DNA, biomarkers, and metabolites). Currently, one of the most important nanostructures in the field of biosensors is graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄), because of its amazing optical as well as electronic features. g-C₃N₄-based biosensors, as an important area of investigation in the field of analytical chemistry, provide an excellent way for detection of a target analyte with the advantages of simple and available instrumentation, good sensitivity and acceptable controllability. In this chapter, we discuss current research of the preparation pathways and characterization of g-C₃N₄ as well as g-C₃N₄-based chemiluminescence (CL) and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensors. Also, we summarize the CL and ECL sensing applications with different examples; for instance, the detection of metal ions and inorganic anions, biomolecules, nucleic acids, biomarkers, proteins, and cell-related determination, enzyme activity, pharmaceutical active ingredients, pesticides, and others. Lastly, the outlook and prospects for future work are also discussed to establish more developed g-C₃N₄-based CL and ECL biosensors.