Abstract
A sensitive and recyclable plasmonic nickel foam sensor has been developed for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). A simple electrochemical method was used to deposit flower-shaped gold nanostructures onto nickel foam substrate. The high packing of the gold nanoflowers onto the nickel foam led to a high enhancement factor (EF) of 1.6 × 1011. The new SERS sensor was utilized for the direct determination of the broad-spectrum β-lactam carbapenem antibiotic meropenem in human blood plasma down to one pM. The sensor was also used in High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)-SERS assembly to provide fingerprint identification of meropenem in human blood plasma. Moreover, the SERS measurements were reproducible in aqueous solution and human blood plasma (RSD = 5.5%) and (RSD = 2.86%), respectively at 200 µg/mL (n = 3), and successfully recycled using a simple method, and hence, used for the repeated determination of the drug by SERS. Therefore, the new sensor has a strong potential to be applied for the therapeutic drug monitoring of meropenem at points of care and intensive care units.
Highlights
Sensitive detection of biomolecules, drugs, are of vital importance in sample analysis and process monitoring
Many researchers coupled vibrational spectroscopy with chromatographic techniques; this coupling of High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)-based separation and vibrational spectroscopy has not been significant over the years, resulting in further complexity produced by using HPLC solvents, which often mask the analyte signals detected by vibrational spectroscopy
We demonstrate a plasmonic nickel foam nanomaterial as a recyclable and sensitive SERS substrate for the rapid detection of drugs in human blood plasma samples
Summary
Drugs, are of vital importance in sample analysis and process monitoring. Mass spectroscopy is considered as one of the gold standard methods due to molecular structure identification and accurate determination of drugs in blood [2]. These techniques are laborious, require expensive equipment, long incubation times, and highly trained personal. They are not cost-effective or time saving in high throughput screening of many samples. SERS would be another gold standard analytical method for therapeutic drug monitoring in blood in addition to mass spectroscopy
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