Sensitive SERS detection of melamine and cyromazine in raw milk using aptamer-based in situ silver nanoparticles synthesis

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a simple design for simultaneous detection of melamine (MEL) and cyromazine (CYR) by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with the formation of well-defined MEL or CYR-aptamer-AgNPs. This detection will take only 10 min, and SERS signals generated by MEL-aptamer-AgNPs exhibits a linear dependence on melamine (R2 = 0.998) concentration ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 ppm on melamine. The detection limit is sensitive down to 43.5 ppb. SERS signals generated by CYR-aptamer-AgNPs exhibits a linear dependence on cyromazine (R2 = 0.997) concentration ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 ppm on cyromazine. The detection limit is sensitive down to 23.6 ppb. This SERS biosensor was first reported for the simultaneous detection of melamine and cyromazine by using aptamer-based in situ silver nanoparticles synthesis. So we expected that the development of this biosensor could provide a good platform for the rapid detection of other pollutants in raw milk.