Advances in Meat Spoilage Detection: A Review of Methods Involving 2D-Based Nanomaterials for Detection of Spoiled Meat

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs) owing to their special biological, chemical, and physical characteristics, have a huge range of potential applications in many fields like environmental science, materials science, smart sensors/biosensors, etc. In this review, recent developments in fabricating 2DMs-based sensors and biosensors for their applications in food safety, particularly in the detection of spoiled meat, are discussed. The continual development of smart food packing owing to the meat quality and safety of increasing protein dietary requirements has become a matter of great concern. For this purpose, the utilization of various types of 2DMs for detecting and monitoring meat spoilage with applications in food packaging and meat quality monitoring has been described. Firstly, various factors affecting meat quality and shelf life are explained in detail followed by the chemistry behind spoilage of meat, different diagnostic techniques for spoiled meat detection (RAMAN, FTIR, electrochemical, colorimetric, fluorescence, etc.), and finally, usage of 2DMs including graphene and its derivatives, transition metal dichalcogenides, black phosphorous and transition metal carbides/ nitrides (MXene) for spoiled meat detection. This review, therefore, highlights the potential of 2DMs bearing numerous features such as cost-effectiveness, high simplicity, viability, and other multi-purpose tools for the development of intelligent sensing probes for the estimation of spoiled meat. Ultimately, we included the existing research limitations and discussed the potential future directions for this exciting field.