Ag nanocubes monolayer-modified PDMS as flexible SERS substrates for pesticides sensing

• DOI: 10.1007/s00604-022-05328-z
• Publication Date: 2022-05-25T21:02:28Z
• Authors: Dacheng Xia; Panpan Jiang; Zhiwei Cai; Rui Zhou; Bo Tu; Nan Gao; Gang Chang; Hanping He; Yunbin He
• Keywords: Silver; Malus; 02 engineering and technology; Pesticides; Thiram; Spectrum Analysis, Raman; 0210 nano-technology; 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

A new approach is presented to fabricate flexible surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate of Ag nanocubes monolayer-modified polydimethylsiloxane (Ag NCs/PDMS) through a powerful three-phase interface self-assemble method. The morphologies and crystal structures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The self-assembled Ag NCs/PDMS substrate exhibited high SERS activity and good signal homogeneity, which was successfully used for quantitative detection of thiram; the detection limit reached 10 ng/mL, and the linear range is 10-1000 ng/mL. Furthermore, the flexible SERS substrates were successfully employed to detect thiram residues on factual apple samples, and trace amount (1 ng/cm2) of thiram residues was detected on apple peels. The excellent SERS detection ability of self-assembled Ag NCs/PDMS substrate indicated that it will play an important role in pesticide detection in the future.