Smart Sensing of Nerve Agents

The recent international scenario highlights the importance to protect human health and environmental quality from toxic compounds. In this context, organophosphorous (OP) Nerve Agents (NAs) have received particular attention, due to their use in terrorist attacks. Classical instrumental detection techniques are sensitive and selective, but they cannot be used in real field due to the high cost, specialized personnel requested and huge size. For these reasons, the development of practical, easy and fast detection methods (smart methods) is the future of this field. Indeed, starting from initial sensing research, based on optical and/or electrical sensors, today the development and use of smart strategies to detect NAs is the current state of the art. This review summarizes the smart strategies to detect NAs, highlighting some important parameters, such as linearity, limit of detection and selectivity. Furthermore, some critical comments of the future on this field, and in particular, the problems to be solved before a real application of these methods, are provided.