Trends in Food Science & Technology最新文献

{"title":"Recent advances of food hazard detection based on molecularly imprinted polymer paper-based analytical devices","authors":"Yahan Cui ,&nbsp;Ke Cui ,&nbsp;Longchang Shi ,&nbsp;Hongyuan Yan ,&nbsp;Dandan Han","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105259","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105259","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The rising incidence of foodborne hazards demands urgent advancements in rapid on-site detection technologies. While conventional methods provide reliable contaminant analysis, their dependence on bulky equipment, lengthy protocols, and skilled technicians limits field applications. Paper-based analytical devices (PADs), characterized by affordability, ultralight portability, and single-use practicality, have emerged as ideal platforms for decentralized food safety monitoring. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), serving as synthetic molecular recognition elements, replicate natural receptor specificity through template-shaped cavities while offering superior thermal/chemical stability. The fusion of MIPs with PADs (MIP-PADs) bridges the gap between laboratory-grade selectivity and field-deployable simplicity, enabling cost-effective contaminant screening without sacrificing accuracy.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review comprehensively examines the evolution of MIP-PADs as disruptive tools for food safety assurance. We first outline the core design principles of MIP-PADs, detailing imprinting strategies tailored for paper substrates—from in situ modification to post-introduction polymerization. The discussion then focuses on dominant detection modalities (e.g., colorimetric systems, fluorescent platforms, electrochemical sensors, surface-enhanced Raman scattering-based assays). Applications span critical food hazards—antibiotics in dairy, mycotoxins in grains, and allergens in processed foods. Current limitations faced by MIP-PADs alongside emerging solutions and future trends are also presented.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>MIP-PADs have demonstrated remarkable efficacy in food safety monitoring, enabling selective detection of food hazards through their tailored molecular recognition cavities. Despite advantages in rapidity, cost-effectiveness, and field adaptability, challenges persist in MIP-PADs reusability, cross-reactivity mitigation for structurally similar contaminants, and batch-to-batch consistency during large-scale fabrication. Future advancements may focus on multiplexed MIP-PADs for simultaneous multi-contaminant screening, and smartphone-integrated platforms with AI-powered image analysis. Addressing these limitations could transform MIP-PADs into mainstream tools, empowering decentralized food safety surveillance from farms to consumer endpoints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105259"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144916574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The expanding horizons of antifreeze proteins from food science to multidisciplinary technological innovations","authors":"Yishan Fu ,&nbsp;Yangyang Li ,&nbsp;Song Liu ,&nbsp;Jian Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105252","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105252","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) exhibit unique capabilities in modulating ice crystal formation, offering significant potential for applications in food preservation, cryopreservation, and biomedical fields. However, their widespread industrial adoption faces challenges including suboptimal molecular structures, insufficient production efficiency, and undefined safety protocols.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and objective</h3><div>This review advances beyond traditional single-species analyses by systematically dissecting AFP structural-functional diversities through cross-species comparisons, while integrating protein engineering, synthetic biology, and risk assessment to establish a comprehensive technical framework for industrial translation. Additionally, this review examines the promising yet underexplored applications of AFPs in food texture engineering, cellular agriculture, and biomedical innovations. By systematically integrating fundamental principles, biotechnological advancements, and cutting-edge applications, it provides actionable insights for translating AFP research into practical industrial solutions.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>The remarkable ice-binding properties of AFPs stem from their unique molecular architecture, which has been successfully enhanced through protein engineering strategies including multimerization to boost activity fiftyfold. These engineered proteins have opened new possibilities across multiple disciplines, from precisely controlled drug delivery systems that respond to temperature changes to transformative applications in food technology such as light-responsive texture modification. Despite these advances, significant hurdles remain in bringing these innovations to industrial scale, particularly regarding the establishment of safety assessment standards and overcoming production limitations. Moving forward, bridging these gaps between laboratory research and commercial implementation will be crucial for unlocking the full potential of AFP technologies across their diverse range of applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105252"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Food contact materials based on N-halamines or photosensitizers: An emerging strategy for developing “rechargeable” antibacterial properties","authors":"Yao Liu ,&nbsp;Hankai Zhang ,&nbsp;Zhou Zhang ,&nbsp;Yuhe Dong ,&nbsp;Tao Jiang ,&nbsp;Yujia Zhang ,&nbsp;Ye Peng ,&nbsp;Xi Yu ,&nbsp;Ying Xiao ,&nbsp;Tian Zhong","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105255","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105255","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Foodborne diseases affect approximately 600 million people each year and remain a serious global public health issue. Traditional physical, chemical and biological antibacterial methods have various drawbacks such as high cost, harmful residues, drug resistance and non-environmental friendliness. Although biodegradable and renewable antibacterial materials have emerged, the regeneration of these materials involves complex procedures and relies on specialized industrial facilities, and thus has not been widely adopted in the industry. Recently, a new sustainable antibacterial strategy has begun to emerge in the field of food contact materials. This method is inspired by rechargeable batteries. Through a simple “charging” process, the material can be repeatedly replenished to restore its antibacterial performance without changing its physical form.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review defines “rechargeable” as regenerating antibacterial activity through chemical treatment (e.g., NaClO immersion) or energy input (e.g., light exposure) without altering a material's physical form. It combines experimental data and application cases to review the forms, charging efficiency, cyclic antibacterial performance, and safety evaluation of materials.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>The “rechargeable” antibacterial properties of food contact materials are currently achieved through two main mechanisms: N-halamine and photosensitizers. N-halamine-based materials can undergo up to 20 recharging cycles through chlorination reactions in diluted bleach solutions, while still maintaining outstanding antibacterial efficacy (&gt;3-log bacterial reduction). Materials containing photosensitizers (such as vitamin K3 (VK3) and 3,3′,4,4′-benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride) continuously “charge” under light, storing reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can be continuously released in the dark to achieve long-lasting antibacterial effects. Photosensitizer-based materials can retain approximately 70 % of their initial photocatalytic activity and maintain effective antibacterial performance (with a bacterial reduction of 5 log) after at least 4 charge-discharge cycles. This “rechargeable” strategy has the potential to facilitate the transition of food contact materials from the “single-use” model to a “recycling” model.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105255"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144896724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"AI-empowered spectroscopic gas sensing towards real-time food system monitoring and predictive quality control","authors":"Fangchen Ding ,&nbsp;Rili Zha ,&nbsp;Leiqing Pan ,&nbsp;Xiao Chen ,&nbsp;Juan Francisco García-Martín ,&nbsp;Weijie Lan","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105249","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105249","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The advancement of efficient, intelligent, and scalable detection technologies has become a critical priority for ensuring quality control throughout the food supply chain. Spectroscopic gas sensing (SGS) has emerged as a promising analytical approach, offering non-contact operation, rapid response, and high sensitivity. By monitoring changes in ambient gas composition associated with processing, transportation, and storage in food system, SGS techniques enable efficient assessment of food quality and safety.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review focuses on promising SGS techniques applied in food system, particularly non-dispersive infrared spectroscopy, tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, and photoacoustic spectroscopy. Their fundamental principles, operational parameters, and performance characteristics are systematically reviewed for recent food-related applications. Notably, specific advances in AI-enabled SGS, including signal denoising, feature extraction, multimodal fusion, and dynamic feedback within cloud-edge-device frameworks are addressed. Finally, this review proposes a technical roadmap and conceptual framework for scaling up SGS in food system, highlighting emerging trends in integrating AI-enabled SGS with Internet of Things (IoT), flexible materials, and digital twin systems, and emphasizing the importance of standardized protocols and open spectral datasets for scalable implementation.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusion</h3><div>The integration of SGS technologies with advanced AI techniques enables rapid and non-contact detection of food gases at ppm to ppb levels, providing a powerful solution for real-time food system monitoring and predictive quality control. Furthermore, deep interconnection between AI-empowered SGS and IoT networks, intelligent packaging, and digital twin systems, together with the need for unified standards and accessible spectral datasets are crucial future trends.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105249"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144896726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microbial resources for food system sustainability: Lessons from the cocoa industry","authors":"Ananya Gupta,&nbsp;Luca Cocolin","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105250","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105250","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The food system faces significant challenges with complex interrelations linked to issues like climate change, loss of biodiversity, human rights violations as well as food insecurity. Actors in the food system use different strategies to mitigate these issues and their interactions, from many perspectives like production, consumption and policy.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This paper examines how emerging tools in microbiology can tackle some of these systemic problems using the lens of the cocoa industry. The paper uses a practical SWOT (Strengths-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats) framework to draw parallels on the inherent advantages and limitations of the microbial tools (Strengths and weaknesses) while also contextualizing them into the broader framework of our existing food system based on external factors (Opportunities and threats). Thus, this analysis highlights the role of different microorganisms and how they can be leveraged with the latest technological tools to address pervasive issues in the food system.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>The paper explores latest advancements in the field of food microbiology, extrapolating its potential to directly address issues by using the case of the cocoa industry. The limitations of these tools and the issues with implementation are also discussed to highlight future avenues for researching strategies to overcome them. Finally, an argument is made for how these tools can also be applied in the larger food system for innovate solutions for the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105250"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From passive to self-aware packs: Flexible Sensor-AI integration powering intelligent, sustainable food packaging","authors":"Zhixin Jia ,&nbsp;Hongwei Hou ,&nbsp;Huan Chen ,&nbsp;Yaning Fu ,&nbsp;Wenjun Mu ,&nbsp;Xinting Yang ,&nbsp;Jingbin Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105254","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105254","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The global agri-food sector faces persistent challenges in ensuring food quality, safety, and sustainability. Conventional packaging functions as a passive barrier, incapable of monitoring physicochemical or microbiological changes in real time. This limitation necessitates reliance on conservative expiration dates, thereby contributing to significant food waste. Smart interactive packaging addresses these issues by detecting and communicating the dynamic conditions of food products.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review critically assesses flexible sensor materials, including conductive polymers and carbon-based nanomaterials, as well as their integration with wireless communication systems and energy-harvesting technologies. It also evaluates machine learning-driven artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies for freshness scoring and shelf-life prediction. Practical implementations are reviewed through case studies involving sensor patches, embedded films, logistics optimization, and consumer interfaces.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Flexible sensors enable millimeter-scale monitoring of temperature, humidity, gases, pH, and microbial metabolites, while roll-to-roll printing supports scalable integration into packaging. AI-driven pipelines process multimodal sensor data to generate freshness scores, estimate shelf life, and detect anomalies. These systems employ regression and tree-based models as well as convolutional and recurrent neural networks enhanced by explainable AI techniques. Demonstrations of sensor patches, embedded films, and AI-driven logistics have achieved spoilage reductions. Despite these advances, challenges remained in addressing sensor drift, achieving energy autonomy‒systems capable of operating independently through on-board energy harvesting and management, ensuring material circularity, and meeting regulatory requirements. Future efforts should focus on integrating self-healing materials, improved energy harvesting, biodegradable electronics, and human–computer interaction to realize sustainable autonomous smart packaging systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105254"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A review of wheat allergy: allergens characteristic, the impact of processing on allergenicity and future perspective","authors":"Xiaowen Pi ,&nbsp;Siyu Ren ,&nbsp;Haochen Ye ,&nbsp;Jia Cao ,&nbsp;Jinshen Chu ,&nbsp;Lingling Cao ,&nbsp;Bowen Li ,&nbsp;Binjia Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105244","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105244","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop worldwide but it triggers allergies in 0.2–1.0 % of the global population. Clarifying characteristics of wheat allergens and reducing their allergenicity is the basis for preventing and solving wheat allergy.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review concluded the characteristics, structures and epitopes of wheat allergens, especially major allergens (Tri a 14, Tri a 15, Tri a 17, Tri a 19-Tri a 21, Tri a 26, Tri a 28-Tri a 30, Tri a 36, Tri a 37 Tri a 40). Impacts of various processing techniques on wheat allergenicity was also assessed and compared, including heating, acid treatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, polyphenol modification, high-pressure treatment, ultrasound, irradiation and genetic modification, etc.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Wheat allergenicity was closely related to characteristics, structures and epitopes of wheat allergen. Among the various techniques, heating, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation are effective in decreasing the wheat allergenicity due to the disruption of epitopes and the decrease of allergens mainly induced by protein degradation. Additionally, fermentation and polyphenol modification decrease human sensitivity to allergens. It is difficult for irradiation at safe dosages (≤10 kGy) to decrease wheat allergenicity. Other processes (e.g., acid treatment, high-pressure treatment, ultrasound) may work under certain condition. Considering many factors such as the effect of reducing allergenicity, cost, and nutritional value, fermentation and its combined multiple techniques may be the best method to reduce wheat allergenicity. Of note, before producing hypo-allergenicity wheat-based foods, large-scale clinical trials must be conducted to determine their low allergenicity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105244"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intelligent hydrogels: Food detection, preservation and delivery driven by material-derived intelligence","authors":"Shiwei Zheng ,&nbsp;Da-Wen Sun ,&nbsp;Zhiwei Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105247","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105247","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>In the intelligent era marked by surging demands for dynamic environmental perception and precise regulation, intelligent hydrogels with unique material-derived intelligence, excellent biocompatibility, and tunable physicochemical properties provide indispensable core functional modules and physical carriers for the realization of a new generation of intelligent material systems with deep artificial intelligence (AI) coupling. Thus, systematically reviewing the latest research progress of intelligent hydrogels and deeply analysing their structure-activity relationships, response mechanisms, challenges faced, and future development trends has become particularly urgent and necessary.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>Starting from the intrinsic mechanisms of physical and biochemical responses, this review further elaborates innovatively on the regulation strategies of intelligent hydrogels from the perspectives of external field-driven and orthogonal/collaborative design. Additionally, by integrating typical application scenarios such as food detection, intelligent packaging and delivery, it demonstrates the “perceive-execute” capabilities of intelligent hydrogel systems in diverse scenarios.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Intelligent hydrogels utilize their unique material-derived intelligence, achieving real-time environmental sensing and intelligent response in fields such as food science. Non-contact external field strategies (magnetic, electrical, ultrasonic) avoid environmental dependence and spatial resolution limitations. Orthogonal/synergistic designs achieve multi-stimuli response by integrating non-interfering response modules or synergistic energy/signal coupling, allowing parallel processing of complex environmental signals. Intelligent hydrogels exhibit strong intelligence in fields ranging from food safety detection and intelligent packaging to bioactive substance delivery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"165 ","pages":"Article 105247"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145155570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recent advances in the application of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as plasticizers in the production of chitosan-based packaging films","authors":"Oscar Zannou ,&nbsp;Ioannis Mourtzinos ,&nbsp;Mirian Pateiro ,&nbsp;Stamatia Christaki ,&nbsp;Rubén Domínguez-Valencia ,&nbsp;José M. Lorenzo ,&nbsp;Mansuri M. Tosif ,&nbsp;Gulden Goksen","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105251","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105251","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The environmental drawbacks of the synthetic plastics and additives used in packaging occasioned the transition to sustainable and eco-friendly food packaging systems, which implies the use of biopolymers from renewable sources. Chitosan is a biopolymer derived from renewable sources, which provides promising materials for food packaging due to its biodegradable, bioactive, and functional properties. Nonetheless, chitosan-based films require the incorporation of plasticizers to improve their characteristics. Recently, the plasticizing effect of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) has been proved to be prominent and efficient. The introduction of DESs as plasticizers in chitosan-based packaging materials offers sustainable and green pathways for the development of packaging systems.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review explores the recent advances in the development of chitosan-based films, focusing on the use of DESs as plasticizers. We elucidated the production and characteristics of chitosan-based films and the plasticizer behavior of DESs. This review provides a global view of the factors affecting plasticizer properties of DESs for the formation of chitosan-based films. The application of DESs and chitosan-based films for food packaging has been outlined along with the challenges.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>The most common procedure for producing chitosan-based films is casting. DESs have emerged as a new generation of green plasticizers due to their unique physicochemical characteristics and environmental advantages. The use of DESs as plasticizers in chitosan-based films improves the physical, mechanical and bioactive properties of the films, but their performance can be affected by their composition, molar ratio and amount added to the film solution. These findings highlight the potential of DESs for the plasticization of chitosan films as a novel technology in food packaging systems. The production processes of these films should be translated at an industrial level to maximize their potential.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105251"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144896725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recent advances in the detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food: A review of optical sensors, electrochemical sensors, and biosensors","authors":"Yuan Liang ,&nbsp;Qiuyan Jiang ,&nbsp;Marti Z. Hua ,&nbsp;Tiehua Zhang ,&nbsp;Xiaonan Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105239","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105239","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Food safety concerns have drawn significant public attention as incidents of food contamination have become increasingly common. Among various food contaminants, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have raised particular concern due to their persistence, bioaccumulation, and associated human health risks. Although advanced technologies such as chromatography and mass spectrometry are widely used for PFAS detection, these methods are often limited by their operational complexity, time-consuming procedures, and high costs. To overcome these limitations, novel approaches using optical sensors, electrochemical sensors, and biosensors have been developed for PFAS detection in food.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review presents the principles and recent applications of optical sensors for PFAS detection, highlighting the materials used and categorizing sensing strategies based on optical properties and signal variations. Additionally, it summarizes recent progress in electrochemical sensor technologies with emphasis on advanced fabrication techniques involving voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and electrochemiluminescence. The review also explores the current status and potential of biosensors as rapid, cost-effective, and high-efficiency platforms for the detection and analysis of PFAS in food. Finally, it discusses future perspectives and ongoing challenges in the development and deployment of PFAS sensing technologies.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Optical, electrochemical, and biosensor-based methods offer promising alternatives for rapid, sensitive, cost-effective, and portable detection of PFAS in food. This review provides insights into emerging trends and offers perspectives on the future development of sensor technologies for enhanced food quality monitoring and public health protection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 105239"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144890978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}