Abstract
Rapid sampling and multicomponent analysis are vital in pesticide residue detection. In this work, we proposed a SERS platform to detect three kinds of pesticides on apple peels simultaneously by a straightforward “press and peel off” method. The flexible Au/dragonfly wing (Au/DW) substrate was obtained from sputtering Au nanoislands on DW bioscaffold arrays by a simple direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering system. The high-performance substrate exhibited a low limit of detection (LOD) to 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) (10−9 M), outstanding reproducibility (less than 12.15%), good stability and suitability in multifold pesticide residues detection. Considering its excellent sample collection efficiency, the Au/DW substrate was employed to solve critical pesticide residue problems for detection of acephate (APT), cypermethrin (CPT), tsumacide (MTMC) and their multiple components on apple peels. The results show that the LOD was 10−3 ng/cm2 for APT obtained on the apple surface with a calculation equation of y = 0.26x + 6.68 and a determination coefficient (R2) of 0.970. Additionally, the LOD values for CPT and MTMC were 10−3 ng/cm2 and 10−4 ng/cm2, respectively. The finding in this work may provide a promising biomimetic SERS platform for on-spot detection of other organic pollutants in the food industry and inenvironmental protection.
Highlights
In recent years, with the rapid development of economy, consumers and organizations are increasingly concerned about food safety issues which have developed into a worldwide problem [1]
The results indicated that through greatly enhanced Raman signals obtained by Au nanoislands decorated DW surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates, the pesticide residues of APT, CPT and MTMC were effectively detected on apple peels with the limit of detection (LOD) as low as 10−3 ng/cm2, 10−3 ng/cm2 and 10−4 ng/cm2
As can we see from the side-view SEM of Au/dragonfly wing (Au/DW) substrate, the nanogaps between two adjacent Au nanoislands on the top of the nanopillars were all less than 10 nm, which indicated that when the nanogaps between the noble metal nanostructure were small, effective coupling of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) would be caused
Summary
With the rapid development of economy, consumers and organizations are increasingly concerned about food safety issues which have developed into a worldwide problem [1]. Many detection techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [2], colorimetry [3], gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) [4], fluorescence analysis [5], and enzyme inhibition [6] have been widely applied to detect pesticide residues on vegetables and fruits for their accurate measurement. These typical methods are usually time-consuming, expensive, laborious, or require complicated pretreatments which cannot fully meet the need for the convenient, rapid, and cost-effective detection in the modern food industry. The flexible and high-performance SERS substrates clearly demonstrate its potential as rapid, non-destructive, and sensitive SERS detecting platform in trace detection and biosensing applications
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