Design, Fabrication, and Applications of SERS Substrates for Food Safety Detection: Review

Abstract

Sustainable and safe food is an important issue worldwide, and it depends on cost-effective analysis tools with good sensitivity and reality. However, traditional standard chemical methods of food safety detection, such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), and tandem mass spectrometry (MS), have the disadvantages of high cost and long testing time. Those disadvantages have prevented people from obtaining sufficient risk information to confirm the safety of their products. In addition, food safety testing, such as the bioassay method, often results in false positives or false negatives due to little rigor preprocessing of samples. So far, food safety analysis currently relies on the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), HPLC, GC, UV-visible spectrophotometry, and MS, all of which require significant time to train qualified food safety testing laboratory operators. These factors have hindered the development of rapid food safety monitoring systems, especially in remote areas or areas with a relative lack of testing resources. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has emerged as one of the tools of choice for food safety testing that can overcome these dilemmas over the past decades. SERS offers advantages over chromatographic mass spectrometry analysis due to its portability, non-destructive nature, and lower cost implications. However, as it currently stands, Raman spectroscopy is a supplemental tool in chemical analysis, reinforcing and enhancing the completeness and coverage of the food safety analysis system. SERS combines portability with non-destructive and cheaper detection costs to gain an advantage over chromatographic mass spectrometry analysis. SERS has encountered many challenges in moving toward regulatory applications in food safety, such as quantitative accuracy, poor reproducibility, and instability of large molecule detection. As a result, the reality of SERS, as a screening tool for regulatory announcements worldwide, is still uncommon. In this review article, we have compiled the current designs and fabrications of SERS substrates for food safety detection to unify all the requirements and the opportunities to overcome these challenges. This review is expected to improve the interest in the sensing field of SERS and facilitate the SERS applications in food safety detection in the future.

Extraction, Modification, Biofunctionality, and Food Applications of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Protein: An Up-to-Date Review

“…The fundamental principle that forms the basis of air classification is the tendency of particles within an airstream to separate according to their size and density. In this process, milled flour is introduced into a separation chamber and subjected to fluidization using airflow [30]. The dominant methods for fractionating flour involve impact and jet milling, complemented by rotor-type classifiers (Figure 2).…”

Potential of a deep eutectic solvent in silver nanoparticle fabrication for antibiotic residue detection

“…In particular, SERS is an advantageous and practical choice for biosensors in clinical settings thanks to fast response [ 2 ], the ability of real-time measurements [ 3 ], extremely high sensitivity [ 4 ], remarkable selectivity [ 5 ], and tremendous versatility [ 4 , 6 – 7 ]. Many scholars have taken advantage of these properties in cancer diagnosis [ 8 ], detection of hazardous chemicals [ 9 ], tracing of microorganisms [ 7 , 10 – 11 ], and other analytical measurements regarding food, medical, and environmental issues [ 12 – 14 ]. Undeniably, SERS is the future for sensor design.…”

A 30-Year Review on Nanocomposites: Comprehensive Bibliometric Insights into Microstructural, Electrical, and Mechanical Properties Assisted by Artificial Intelligence

“…Enhancing mechanical [22,36,40,41,60,67,70,, electrical [21,27,[30][31][32]35,42,55,59,120,, and microstructural [19,53,63,68,118, attributes in nanocomposites requires precise nanoscale manipulation. This is coupled with issues like reproducibility, cost, and complexity in preparation, adding to the intricacies of nanomaterial research [231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245][246][247][248][249][250]. As nanotechnology evolves, addressing these technical and ethical issues is crucial for maximizing the potential of nanomaterials and ensuring their responsible application in various fields [277][278][279][280].…”