Diazonium Salt-Based Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Nanosensor: Detection and Quantitation of Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Water Samples

Abstract

Here, we present a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) nanosensor for environmental pollutants detection. This study was conducted on three polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), fluoranthene (FL), and naphthalene (NAP). SERS substrates were chemically functionalized using 4-dodecyl benzenediazonium-tetrafluoroborate and SERS analyses were conducted to detect the pollutants alone and in mixtures. Compounds were first measured in water-methanol (9:1 volume ratio) samples. Investigation on solutions containing concentrations ranging from 10−6 g L−1 to 10−3 g L−1 provided data to plot calibration curves and to determine the performance of the sensor. The calculated limit of detection (LOD) was 0.026 mg L−1 (10−7 mol L−1) for BaP, 0.064 mg L−1 (3.2 × 10−7 mol L−1) for FL, and 3.94 mg L−1 (3.1 × 10−5 mol L−1) for NAP, respectively. The correlation between the calculated LOD values and the octanol-water partition coefficient (Kow) of the investigated PAHs suggests that the developed nanosensor is particularly suitable for detecting highly non-polar PAH compounds. Measurements conducted on a mixture of the three analytes (i) demonstrated the ability of the developed technology to detect and identify the three analytes in the mixture; (ii) provided the exact quantitation of pollutants in a mixture. Moreover, we optimized the surface regeneration step for the nanosensor.

Recent Progress in Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering for the Detection of Chemical Contaminants in Water

“…PAHs were detected via SERS using Au NPs coated with polydopamine (PDA) (Du and Jing, 2019). Interestingly, PDA acted as a reactive scaffold for locking PAHs [phenanthrene, pyrene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, and benzo[g,h,i]perylene] into the hotspots for SERS sensing, thereby reaching LOD ranging from 10 to 90 µg/L depending on the PAH (Tijunelyte et al, 2017). This study also showed the identification of the three analytes in the mixture.…”

Sensing Polymer/Paracetamol Interaction with an Independent Component Analysis-Based SERS-MIP Nanosensor

“…Besides, the SERS analysis can be performed in aqueous medium under ambient conditions, which makes it well adapted for analytical chemistry. Considerable progress has been made in this field, from studies of model systems on roughened metallic surfaces, sensing and imaging applications, to single molecule detection [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. However, tremendous challenges remain in terms of reproducibility and sensitivity.…”

Gold Nanocylinders on Gold Film as a Multi-spectral SERS Substrate

“…Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful tool for the identification and the quantification of chemical or biological species [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Although largely developed for the detection of analytes, a large number of sensors were proposed in the literature in a wide range of applications, e.g., for sensors [11], luminescence enhancement [12], emission color tuning [13], detection of biomarkers for disease diagnosis [14][15][16], detection of explosives for citizens security [17], of food contaminants for consumers safety [18,19] or of pollutants for the determination of environmental status [20][21][22].…”