Sensing of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with cyclodextrin inclusion complexes on silver nanoparticles by surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Abstract

We have developed a new type of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate that consists of per-6-deoxy-(6-thio)-beta-cyclodextrin (CD-SH) modified by silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) for sensing of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a kind of environmental pollutant, with very low affinity to metallic surfaces. The designed system can induce some PAH molecules (anthracene and pyrene) to insert into the hydrophobic cavity of beta-CD, which enables one to detect SERS of PAHs because the analytes are very close to the AgNPs surface, which is the zone of electromagnetic enhancement. The measured spectra can easily distinguish the two kinds of PAH compounds in a mixture by their own characteristic peaks. In addition, we carried out selective detection of PAHs by SERS of the inclusion complexes with different concentrations in the presence of CD-SH functionalized AgNPs. Moreover, this sensing platform has been applied to quantitative detection of PAH in a mixture consisting of anthracene and pyrene. The CD molecule has the feature of high selectivity due to its size of cavity, significantly enhancing the sensitivity of the system after CD-SH adsorbs on AgNPs via the terminal thiol. This proposed method for the detection of PAHs holds great potential in environmental analytical chemistry.

Hydroxylamine reduced silver colloid for naphthalene and phenanthrene detection using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

“…Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for the past fifteen years have been employed in the in situ detection of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in aqueous solution. Several studies with impressive results on the quantitative determination of PAHs using functionalized metal nanoparticles have been reported [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Establishment of rapid detection method of methamidophos in vegetables by surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy

“…Its high sensitivity and potentiality in providing useful information regarding metal adsorbate interactions make SERS a versatile technique for application in diverse fields such as food analysis [13], surface chemistry [5], biomolecular [14], environmental monitoring [15], biomedical [16], and medical sciences.…”

Precision Target Guide Strategy for Applying SERS into Environmental Monitoring

“…As shown in Figure 1, the cavity diameter is 6.4 À, which contributes to the interaction with guest molecules [39]. As a functional modifier, β-CD has been used for the SERS detection of both organic pollutants and inorganic ions, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB-77, PCB-1) down to 3 μM, [40] methyl parathion at picomolar level, [41] PAHs (anthracene, pyrene or anthrecene) [39,42] and micromolar Pb 2+ ions [29]. In most of the reported works, thio-modified β-CD (such as per-6-deoxy-(6-thio)-β-CD) was used because of the weak modifying efficiency of natural β-CD onto the surface of the metal structure.…”

“…Several typical host molecules have been applied as functional modifiers, such as viologen host lucigenin for the selective detection of PAHs or pesticides [34][35][36], dithiocarbamate calix [4] arene derivatives for the capture and detection of organic pollutants such as pyrene and PAHs [28,37], and cucurbit[n]uril for the SERS monitoring of diaminostilbene [38]. Cyclodextrins (CDs) are another class of host molecules in supramolecular chemistry, and they have cyclic oligosaccharide structures with hydrophobic internal cavities which can selectively capture suitable nanosized guest molecules [39]. The most widely used cyclodextrin is β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) with seven glucose units, which is a natural product of specific bacteria.…”