Improving the analytical figures of merit of SERS for the analysis of model environmental pollutants

Abstract

The presence of naphthalene, phenol and benzoic acid derivatives in natural waters constitutes a public health issue. The toxicity and chemical activity of these chemicals and their persistence in the environment depend on the types of functional groups attached to their basic aromatic structure. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy has shown promise for the analysis of aromatic compounds owing to a tremendous enhancement of the analytical response and also a large amount of available structural information. Despite these advantages, SERS has not been established as a routine analytical tool owing to limitations in the analytical figures of merit such as reproducibility and linear dynamic range. This paper reports the use of silver-polydimethylsiloxane nanocomposites in combination with a sample translation technique for the improved qualitative and quantitative analysis of model environmental pollutants in water. This novel approach considerably improves the reproducibility and the sensitivity of the technique by minimizing the thermal and photolytic effects inherent in SERS. The results show a linear dynamic range of at least two orders of magnitude with detection limits as low as 2.9 × 10 −8 M and a precision of <10% relative standard deviation. The influences of different experimental variables such as irradiation time, translation rate and pH and the potential use of the technique for the analysis of environmental pollutants are presented.

2D nanostructure of gold nanoparticles: An approach to SERS-active substrate

“…Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one of the promising field now-a-days for its potential applications in identification and structural characterization [1][2][3][4]. The magic terminology responsible for the giant enhancement (10 14 -10 15 order) is ''hot site'' or ''active site'' as it is attributed by many others including Nie group and Kneipp group [5][6].…”

Sensing of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid by surface-enhanced Raman scattering

“…When SERS spectrum is obtained above a certain limit concentration of the adsorbate on the surface, it is a mean result, which if obtained using a regular and ordered metallic substrate allows for the quantification of the analyte in the mothersolution. As such, the use of the SERS technique has been extended to analytical applications in a number of different fields, including environmental chemistry [21][22][23][24][25], biology [26,27] and forensic chemistry [28,29].…”

Gold‐polymer nanocomposites: studies of their optical properties and their potential as SERS substrates

“…The potential benefits for improved qualitative and quantitative analysis using STT with Ag-PDMS have been previously presented by our group. 9,10 In this work, we have applied this technique to the Au-PDMS substrates to reduce the deleterious effects of stationary SERS and improve the S/N of Au-PDMS.…”