Raman spectroscopy as polyvalent alternative for water pollution detection

Abstract

Human activities are, more or less directly, responsible for increasing pollution in running waters, making this an important issue over the last decades and the ones to come. Many documents define a legal frame on the water pollutants underlying the importance of the surveillance of their presence in the environment. The difficulty in the surveillance of these products is due to the great diversity of the pollutant families, leading to the necessity to use several analytical techniques. This study shows the relevance of using Raman spectrometry for the detection and the quantification of several major pollutant families in an aqueous media such as drugs, pesticides or salts coming from fertilisers.

In situ SERS detection of dissolved nitrate on hydrated gold substrates

“… 25 Elsewhere, asymmetric stretching ( ν 3 ), which is a weak Raman band compared to symmetric stretching, of NO 3 − has been reported at 1345 cm −1 for dissociated NaNO 3 in solution. 41 However, we observed peaks in the same region for dissociated NaNO 3 and water in the solution Raman spectra, which suggests this may be related to dissolved gas. In the SERS spectra ( Fig.…”

Using Raman Spectroscopy for Characterization of Aqueous Media and Quantification of Species in Aqueous Solution

“…In that objective, many studies have investigated the possibility to use optical methods, and more specifically RS for the detection of pollutants in water media [57,58]. The method described earlier in this chapter, based on the calculation of ratios of pollutant-specific peak and water peak, can then also be applied to water pollutants [59,60].…”

Phantom membrane microfluidic cross-flow filtration device for the direct optical detection of water pollutants

“…However, they require several processing steps and highly specialized instrumentation and hence they are not suitable for the implementation in autonomous platforms capable of on-site, real-time monitoring. Nowadays, the proper quantification of most contaminants still requires the highest analytical performance only obtained in the laboratory by highly trained personnel [8]. Consequently, the required sample collection and transportation necessarily prevents the possibility of a rapid intervention in case of contamination.…”