Gold Nanomaterials-Based Electrochemical Sensors and Biosensors for Phenolic Antioxidants Detection: Recent Advances

Antioxidants play a central role in the development and production of food, cosmetics,and pharmaceuticals, to reduce oxidative processes in the human body. Among them, phenolic antioxidantsare considered even more efficient than other antioxidants. They are divided into naturaland synthetic. Natural antioxidants are generally found in plants and their synthetic counterpartsare generally added as preventing agents of lipid oxidation during the processing and storageof fats, oils, and lipid-containing foods: All of them can exhibit different effects on human health,which are not always beneficial. Because of their relevant bioactivity and importance in several sectors,such as agro-food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic, it is crucial to have fast and reliable analysisRmethods available. In this review, different examples of gold nanomaterial-based electrochemical(bio)sensors used for the rapid and selective detection of phenolic compounds are analyzed anddiscussed, evidencing the important role of gold nanomaterials, and including systems with orwithout specific recognition elements, such as biomolecules, enzymes, etc. Moreover, a selection ofgold nanomaterials involved in the designing of this kind of (bio)sensor is reported and criticallyanalyzed. Finally, advantages, limitations, and potentialities for practical applications of gold nanomaterial-based electrochemical (bio)sensors for detecting phenolic antioxidants are discussed.