Fabrication of a Flexible SERS Sensing Platform with High Sensitivity and Its Application in Monitoring of Trace Benzotriazole in Tap Water

Abstract

Benzotriazole in trap water is a potentially danger for human health, and its rapid and real-time monitoring is thus very desirable. Here, a flexible SERS sensing platform was fabricated on Ti plate utilizing poly diallyldimethylammonium chloride, Ag nanoparticles, Ti3C2 nanosheets, and poly(vinyl alcohol). Next, the SERS effect for benzotriazole in water was systematically explored. Our investigation shows that this SERS sensing platform is extremely sensitive to benzotriazole in water. The limit of detection (LOD) is as low as 0.01 nmol L–1. Besides, it also possesses excellent repeatability (point-to-point RSD 6.8%) and reproducibility (batch-to-batch RSD 6.2%), strong antijamming performance, good flexibility, and outstanding mechanical stability and can respond rapidly to trace benzotriazole in water. More intriguingly, this SERS sensing platform can reveal high sensitivity for trace benzotriazole in tap water, with a minimal detection limit of 0.1 nmol L–1. Sensitive qualitative analysis as well as quantitative detection can be achieved in the range of 10–4–10–10 mol L–1, demonstrating that it may be a powerful tool in the online monitoring of trace benzotriazole in tap water. Taken together, our investigation might open up an avenue in designing MXene-based SERS substrates for real-time detecting trace benzotriazole in tap water.