Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Active Gold Nanoparticles Decorated on a Porous Polymer Filter

Abstract

In this work, we designed a process to assemble gold nanoparticles onto a three-dimensional (3D) polymer surface, which can then be monitored using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). This work is the first demonstration of the assembly of gold nanoparticles on a filter film and in situ measurement with Raman spectroscopy. Herein, a polyhexamethylene adipamide (Nylon66) film embedded in the organic filter film was used as a template to fabricate a tunable SERS-active substrate. A "hotspot"-rich gold-nanoparticle-decorated polymer substrate for SERS was prepared; this substrate exhibited high sensitivity in trace detection of targets. The study was conducted using 4-mercaptobenzoic acid as a probe molecule with the aim of comparing the scattering efficiency and the homogeneity of the Raman signal on selected substrates. In addition, we used the gold-decorated polymer film to detect a biotin-avidin complex. The most powerful advantage of the proposed microanalytical device is the in situ SERS application. The 3D nanoporous structures described in this work hold strong potential for use in various applications such as environmental monitoring and biomolecule detection.

Bioreduction of precious and heavy metals by Candida species under oxidative stress conditions

“…Raman spectroscopy helps to identify molecules through spectral information, which is considered a molecular fingerprint. This technique has been widely used for the identification of NPs of different chemical composition (Lu et al ., ; Chen et al ., ). Raman spectroscopy, as observed in Table , when used for the characterization of AuNPs, revealed two peaks at 589 and 1102 nm wavelengths, which are close to those previously reported for gold nanospheres (Kalmodia et al ., ).…”

Functionalized Inorganic Nanoparticles for Magnetic Separation and SERS Detection of Water Pollutants

“…Additionally, the polymer chains provide chemical groups for further chemical functionalization that might improve selectivity for target analytes. Several routes have been used to produce polymer based nanocomposites for SERS, comprising either natural, , or synthetic, polymers. Our interest in this topic led us to develop polymer‐based nanocomposites by employing “in situ” miniemulsion polymerizations, that enable the SERS detection of several analytes such as DNA bases,, thiosalicylic acid and 2,2′‐dithiodipyridine , .…”

“…Several parameters influence the morphology of the final nanocomposite particles such as the amount of monomer, (co)surfactant, size and surface coating of the inorganic NPs. Other synthetic strategies have been employed to prepare nanocomposites for SERS detection of dyes,, , aqueous mercury, bacteria, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and thiol molecules , , …”

SERS Research Applied to Polymer Based Nanocomposites

“…Medical diagnosis and target detection [124] SERS mapping and imaging [124] Poly(styrene)-block-poly(acrylic acid) Au Biomolecular detection [110] Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Au Biomolecular detection [121] Ultradetection or single molecule detection [123] Au@Ag Biomolecular detection [125] Fe 3 O 4 @Ag Environmental monitoring [48] Poly(vinylidene fluoride) Ag Biomolecular detection [87] Au Biomolecular detection [165] Poly(hexamethylene adipamide) Au Ultradetection or single molecule detection [161] Poly(acrylonitrile) Ag Biomolecular detection [127] Poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) Au@Ag Biomolecular detection [155] Table 2. SERS applications of metal/polymer nanocomposites.…”

“…In this context, an important objective in the application of SERS substrates has been the analysis of vestigial amounts of the target analyte for which minimal specimen preparation is required [69,70,72,73,107,114,115]. This is relevant to implement analytical protocols as many SERS applications are foreseen, such as environmental monitoring [48,74], SERS mapping and imaging [67,68,93], medical diagnosis [109,124,126,151,160,161] and substrate characterization [71,96,107]. Table 2 lists polymer based composites mentioned in this chapter with the corresponding SERS applications by taking into account the type of polymer and the metal nanofillers employed.…”