Recent Progress in g-C₃N₄ Functionalized Nanocomposites for Electrochemical Sensors: A Comprehensive Review

ABSRACTGraphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) based nanocomposites have significant attention as a versatile two-dimensional material for their unique structure, remarkable stability, electronic, and mechanical properties. This review summarizes recent progress in the development of g-C₃N₄ nanocomposites-based electrochemical sensors aimed to detecting different environmental pollutants. The discussion also includes an overview of the synthesis routes, structural features, surface modification techniques and as well as key properties of g-C₃N₄-based nanocomposite materials that improve its sensing capabilities for various environmental pollutants from real samples. However, these key attributes, such as high surface area, efficient electron transfer, and strong adsorption capacity make g-C₃N₄-based nanocomposites as an excellent candidate for pollutant detection. Also, the enhancements through the integration of nanomaterials, including graphene oxide, conductive polymers, metal-organic frameworks, MXene, metal, and metal oxide nanoparticles have notably advanced the performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, detection limit, stability, and repeatability. Moreover, the review discusses the use of electrochemical techniques such as voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy for the analysis of pollutants in complex samples of water, soil, and foods. Also, the existing challenges, including reproducibility, selectivity, and real-time monitoring are discussed. Finally, the review discusses future prospects in terms of large-scale production, machine learning-enabled sensor design, and development of g-C₃N₄ nanocomposite-based sensors for the development of portable analytical systems for monitoring the presence of residual environmental pollutants in real samples.