Trends in sensitive electrochemical sensors for endocrine disruptive compounds

The endocrine system that provides communication and maintains homeostasis, is an important part of the body. Any defects or disruptions that affect the endocrine system may cause serious problems in the actions and functions of the body. Endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDCs) are exogenous chemicals or mixtures of chemicals that affects normal functions of the endocrine system by interfering with endogenous hormones and hormonal pathways and disrupting homeostasis. Numerous compounds are considered as endocrine disruptors such as bisphenols (BPs), phthalates, pesticides etc. and they are widely used for industrial purposes in many commercial products. Therefore, human exposure is almost inevitable. Besides that, EDCs may cause environmental pollution and are found in surface waters, wastewater, soil etc. To prevent exposure and hazardous effect, there are legislative regulations including restrictions and prohibitions of the use of EDCs. Due to these reasons; it is crucial to develop highly sensitive, low-cost, easy-to-use, and rapid sensors for the determination of EDCs in commercial and environmental samples. Although there are mostly chromatographic and spectrometric methods for the EDCs monitoring, electrochemistry surpasses them with advantageous properties such as easy application procedure, high sensitivity, very low limit of detection (LOD) values and low-cost.In this review, major groups of EDCs will be explained with their recent and novel electrochemical sensor applications for their detection in commercial and environmental samples.