Lipid Membrane Nanosensors for Environmental Monitoring: The Art, the Opportunities, and the Challenges

The advent of nanotechnology has brought along new materials, techniques, and concepts, readily adaptable to lipid membrane-based biosensing. The transition from micro-sensors to nano-sensors is neither straightforward nor effortless, yet it leads to devices with superior analytical characteristics: ultra-low detectability, small sample volumes, better capabilities for integration, and more available bioelements and processes. Environmental monitoring remains a complicated field dealing with a large variety of pollutants, several decomposition products, or secondary chemicals produced ad hoc in the short- or medium term, many sub-systems affected variously, and many processes largely unknown. The new generation of lipid membranes, i.e., nanosensors, has the potential for developing monitors with site-specific analytical performance and operational stability, as well as analyte-tailored types of responses. This review presents the state-of-the art, the opportunities for niche applicability, and the challenges that lie ahead.