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Chemical Sensors and Biosensors—Principles and Applications
Author(s) -
Cammann Karl,
Lemke Udo,
Rohen Anja,
Sander Jürgen,
Wilken Hildegard,
Winter Babette
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition in english
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 0570-0833
DOI - 10.1002/anie.199105161
Subject(s) - automation , risk analysis (engineering) , redundancy (engineering) , computer science , key (lock) , control (management) , control system , reliability engineering , variety (cybernetics) , quality (philosophy) , microelectronics , systems engineering , control engineering , engineering , computer security , artificial intelligence , electrical engineering , business , mechanical engineering , philosophy , epistemology
Chemical and environmental engineering and biotechnology are among the fields now being transformed by continually increasing levels of automation. Whereas the objective in other sectors of industry is simply to increase efficiency, here considerations of system theory or safety demand a high level of automation. Either the processes are too complex and require multifunctional control with feedback, or an analysis of the safety requirements shows the necessity for a certain degree of redundancy in the safety measures, and for elimination of human error as a risk factor. With regard to quality control, cost‐benefit analyses lead to striking conclusions which again indicate the need for highly automated, and above all reliable, systems to eliminate rejects. The crux of any automated system is the measurement and control technology; of central importance is the rapid, reliable, and in some cases continuous, measurement and interpretation of key processes or control variables. For this purpose a wide variety of recording instruments and sensors are used to give as accurate a picture as possible of the state of the system. It is obvious from this that the performance of the control system is critically dependent on the sensors. Errors in the measured quantities can become amplified in the control variables or, in dynamic systems, can lead to undesirable operating conditions. Moreover, as a consequence of great advances in microelectronics, “intelligent sensors” which can calibrate and control themselves will be one of the key technologies of the nineties. Unless fast and immediate information on the true current status of a system is available, microprocessors as control devices react blindly and unpredictably to errors in input information. New discoveries in the fields of electronic, electrochemical, and optical transducers are now being applied in heterogeneous catalysis and surface physics, and in biochemistry (enzymology and immunology); in these fields new chemical sensor principles are being tested, which could revolutionize instrumental methods of molecular analysis in particular, owing to their very favorable cost‐performance relationship. This article aims to give an up‐to‐date overview of the current state of the art in these developments, with emphasis on their importance for analysis and their significance in relation to the chemist's interest in mechanisms for identifying substances.