Challenges in surface-enhanced Raman scattering detection of pesticide carbendazim and ways to overcome

Abstract

.Considerable details in the sampling procedure for the detection of the pesticide carbendazim by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) were developed. Experimental parameters and recommendations were selected to minimize side processes of carbendazim photodestruction as well as to reduce the background signal from the silver substrate. It was found from the comparison of experimental and density functional theory calculations data that the position of the SERS bands in the carbendazim spectrum depends on the nature of the applied solvent due to different orientations of carbendazim with respect to the surface of silver nanoparticle film. Adsorption from a chloroform solution is preferable to form an aqueous solution for SERS because random adsorption of molecules on a silver surface provides robust carbendazim identification, displaying a larger number of bands in the SERS spectrum, a higher “signal-to-noise” ratio, and then the processes of carbendazim photodestruction slow down.

Parametric study of the silver nanoparticles deposition on polyelectrolyte supporting layers

“…A typical spectrum is shown in figure 1 (curve 1). According to TEM data, the nanoparticles are polydisperse with the average size is 39 ± 7 nm [11]. After the deposition of nanoparticles on the glass surface coated with one layer of PE, the plasmon band broadens (curve 2-3 in figure 1).…”

“…Nanotextured silver coatings have a wide range of promising applications in modern technology including antimicrobial coatings for medical devices and food packaging [1], photocatalytic surfaces for fuel cells and chemical sensors [2,3], flexible electronics and optical coatings. Particularly, due to unique plasmonic properties combined with the increased surface area, optical nanotextured silver coatings were used to enhance the efficiency of solar cells and in sensing [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Chemical immobilization methods are considered between the cost-effective ways of depositing metal nanoparticle films.…”

“…In this work we studied optical and morphological properties of the silver nanoparticles films depending on the deposition parameters such as immobilization time, concentration of the deposited PE, number of PE layers, salt concentration in the PE layers. Uniformity and reproducibility of the obtained films were also evaluated since such colloidal silver films are promising for plasmonic sensor applications, for example, surface enhanced fluorescence immunoassays [5,17,19,24] and surface enhanced Raman scattering [11,12].…”