Self-assembled two-dimensional gold nanoparticle film for sensitive nontargeted analysis of food additives with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

The use of different food additives and their active metabolites has been found to cause serious problems to human health. Thus, considering the potential effects on human health, developing a sensitive and credible analytical method for different foods is important. Herein, the application of solvent-driven self-assembled Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) for the rapid and sensitive detection of food additives in different commercial products is reported. The assembled substrates are highly sensitive and exhibit excellent uniformity and reproducibility because of uniformly distributed and high-density hot spots. The sensitive analyses of ciprofloxacin (CF), diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), tartrazine and azodicarbonamide at the 0.1 ppm level using this surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate are given, and the results show that Au NP arrays can serve as efficient SERS substrates for the detection of food additives. More importantly, SERS spectra of several commercial liquors and sweet drinks are obtained to evaluate the addition of illegal additives. This SERS active platform can be used as an effective strategy in the detection of prohibited additives in food.

MoS2-Based Substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering: Fundamentals, Progress and Perspective

“…Therefore, a sensitive and credible approach for detection techniques is imperative. Since most illegal additives have Raman activity, the SERS technique can examine their contents, ensuring powerful food supervision [84][85][86]. Li et al [87] prepared a 3D flexible Ag NPs@MoS 2 /pyramidal polymer structure, which not only had a large surface area but also could generate dense hotspots.…”

Recent Developments in Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and Its Application in Food Analysis: Alcoholic Beverages as an Example

“…Liu et al combined liquid-liquid extraction and self-assembled AuNPs for the dual-analyte detection of BBP in the organic phase and edible pigment, sunset yellow, in the aqueous phase [ 164 ]. One of the studies applied a colorimetric SERS sensor to evaluate BBP in liquor and yellow rice wine [ 165 ]. Wu et al combined solvent-driven self-assembled Au NPs with SERS to detect additives in food.…”

Improved food additive analysis by ever-increasing nanotechnology

“…Wu et al . prepared gold nanoparticles with a diameter of 80 nm into a single layer of uniform gold nanoparticle film by solvent driven self-assembly [ 68 ]. Using this film as a SERS substrate, the sensitive analysis of sunset yellow and tartrazine in ppm level was realized.…”