Fabrication of a Flexible Gold Nanorod Polymer Metafilm via a Phase Transfer Method as a SERS Substrate for Detecting Food Contaminants

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry Vol. 66; no. 26; pp. 6889 - 6896
• Main Authors: Yang, Nan, You, Ting-Ting, Gao, Yu-Kun, Zhang, Chen-Meng, Yin, Peng-Gang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 05.07.2018
• Subjects: China; fish; food contamination; gentian violet; gold; malachite green; nanogold; nanorods; pericarp; polymers; Raman spectroscopy; thiram; China; food safety; surface-enhanced Raman scattering; gold nanorods; flexible film; phase transfer
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b01702

Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been widely used in detection of food safety due to the nondestructive examination property. Here, we reported a flexible SERS film based on a polymer-immobilized gold nanorod polymer metafilm. Polystyrene–polyisoprene–polystyrene (SIS), a transparent and flexible, along with having excellent elasticity, polymer, was chosen as the main support of gold nanorods. A simple phase transfer progress was adopted to mix the gold nanorods with the polymer, which can further be used in most water-insoluble polymers. The SERS film performed satisfactorily while being tested in a series of standard Raman probes, like crystal violet (CV) and malachite green (MG). Moreover, the excellent reproducibility and elastic properties make the film a promising substrate in practical detection. Hence, the MG detection on the fish surface and trace thiram detection on orange pericarp were inspected with detection results of 1 × 10–10 and 1 × 10–6 M, which were below the demand of the National standard of China, exactly matching the realistic application requirements.