Abstract
The applications of SERS in therapeutic drug monitoring, or other fields of analytical chemistry, require the availability of sensitive sensors and experimental approaches that can be implemented in affordable ways. In this contribution, we show the production of cost-effective SERS sensors obtained by depositing Lee-Meisel Ag colloids on filter paper either by natural sedimentation or centrifugation. We have characterized the morphological and plasmonic features of the sensors by optical microscopy, SEM, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Such sensors can be used to quantify by SERS the anti-epileptic drug Perampanel (in the concentration range 1 × 10−4–5 × 10−6 M) by spinning them during the micro-Raman measurements on the top of a custom device obtained from spare part hard disk drives. This approach minimizes laser-induced heating effects and allows averaging over the spatial non-uniformity of the sensor.
Highlights
Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a technique that effectively combines the spectroscopic fingerprint provided by Raman spectroscopy with a strong signal intensification when molecules are in the proximity of properly designed metal nanostructures [1,2]
SERS was proposed as a complementary technique for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of drugs characterized by a narrow therapeutic index (NTI), such as anti-cancer and anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs), for which the quantification of their concentration in blood plasma is essential to individualize the therapy and to minimize adverse effects [4,5]
Our work primarily aims at demonstrating the feasibility of simple production methods to fabricate a large number of SERS substrates with comparable performances, providing a quantitative response in a concentration range sufficiently close to the reference therapeutic range of PER in plasma (3 × 10−7 M–3 × 10−6 M [10])
Summary
Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a technique that effectively combines the spectroscopic fingerprint provided by Raman spectroscopy with a strong signal intensification when molecules are in the proximity of properly designed metal nanostructures [1,2]. To foster the production process, we used a centrifuge that accelerates the aggregation of the metal NPs on the paper fibers In this way, starting from the same colloidal dispersion, we succeeded in producing some tens of comparable SERS substrates in just a few hours. Our work primarily aims at demonstrating the feasibility of simple production methods to fabricate a large number of SERS substrates with comparable performances, providing a quantitative response in a concentration range sufficiently close to the reference therapeutic range of PER in plasma (3 × 10−7 M–3 × 10−6 M [10]). Molecules 2022, 27, 30 setup (described later) that enabled us to perform quantitative measurements on paperbased sensors
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