Paper-Based Electrochemical Devices in Biomedical Field: Recent Advances and Perspectives

Electronic equipment generated 9 million tons of waste in 2005 in EU, and it is expected to grow to more than 12 million tons by 2020. To decrease the environmental pollution of electronics, the development of sustainable sensors, including paper-based electrochemical devices, are attracting growing interest thanks to their cost-effectiveness, suitability for in situ analysis, and environmentally friendly. The development of the paper-based devices as point of care is a paramount issue, since this type of systems meets the requirements of the ASSURED criteria coined by WHO, which describe the ideal characteristics of a diagnostic test, and, as a matter of fact, paper-based (bio)sensors with electrochemical detection practically match this criteria, as they are Affordable (by those at risk of infection), Sensitive (low false-negatives), Specific (few false-positives), User-friendly (simple to perform and requiring minimal training), Rapid (to give useful information at first visit) and Robust (do not require refrigerated storage), Equipment-free, Delivered to those who need it. This chapter (with 73 refs.) covers the recent progresses on paper-based electrochemical (bio)sensors for biomedical field, giving an overview of the different papers and techniques used for the fabrication of paper-based devices as well as the different configurations designed. The main section encompasses the description of several paper-based sensors and biosensors (i.e., enzymatic, immuno- and nucleic acid-based sensors) with biomedical applications as well. The last section describes the future perspectives for eco-designed (bio)sensors, being a hot topic in the field of analytical sensing tools.