Sustainable golden nanoflowers grafted food-waste derived biotemplate for the direct SERS-detection of carcinogenic herbicides from agro-farms

Abstract

Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) is emerging as a potent analytical tool for the detection of various pollutants in complex environments due to its distinctive vibrational fingerprint ability and pronounced detection sensitivity. Precautious of adverse blue-green economies and ecological impacts, sustainable generation of SERS active substrates and analyte casting matrices are getting prioritized. Herein, gold nanoflowers (AuNFs) of ∼75 ± 15 nm were initially biofabricated using an expended cell culture medium as a one-step synthesis cum stabilization strategy. Then the heavy architecture of multi-faceted AuNFs with deep pits and edges, that acted as hotspots for enhancing the localized electromagnetic fields, was utilized for the direct SERS detection of commonly used carcinogenic herbicides collected from agro-farms at nanomolar regimes with 0.44 ppm and 0.27 ppm for Glyphosate and amino methyl phosphonic acid, respectively. Such a low level detection is superior by 8.33% when compared to the reported values. Computational finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations affirmed the enhanced SERS effect from the multi-faceted nanostructure of AuNFs with structural heterogeneities that provide numerous hotspots to amplify the localized electromagnetic field. More eminently, fish scale derived biotemplate through AuNF-analyte drop casting contributed to the exceptional intensities, attributed to the naturally grooved hierarchically porous hydrophilic lamellar structures contact angle of 73°. Overall, the adapted bioengineering of SERS substrate is safe, robust, affordable and reproducible, fostered by bioderived durable biomatrix offering potent sustainable SERS detection of various biomedically and environmentally relevant molecules.