With the development of industry, agriculture and public utilities, varieties of chemicals generated are rapidly increasing, and they infiltrate into surrounding environment such as air, water, and soil, as well as food and daily necessities. Various ...
With the development of industry, agriculture and public utilities, varieties of chemicals generated are rapidly increasing, and they infiltrate into surrounding environment such as air, water, and soil, as well as food and daily necessities. Various techniques including colorimetry, fluorescence, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS / MS), and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) have been developed to ensure detecting and monitoring the metabolism and transformation of these substances in trace amount. Although being the most robust, popular, and reliable method, HPLC required a harsh solvent, high-power source, complex multi-step pre-treatment process, bulky and sophisticated operation, and trained personnel. It is also time-consuming and expensive. Hence, a rapid, simple, highly sensitive, selective, accurate, stable, and multiple detection method should be developed for the determination of these substances in trace amount.
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering, called SERS, was emerged in recent years as an attractive analytical technique for detecting specific substances. It is a simple, easy-handle, cost-effective, fingerprinting, non-destructive, sensitive, and selective method. Various metal nanostructures including silver nanostructures, gold nanostructures and bi-metallic nanostructure have been prepared as substrates to increase the enhancement factor of SERS. However, the single metal nanostructure-based SERS need to improve for quantitative detection. Also, the preparation of reproducible, reliable, and powerful SERS active substrate has been developed to quantitative SERS application. Therefore, a new nanostructure, based on the combination of silica (SiO_(2)) core and silver nanoparticles that called a silver embedded silica nanoparticle (SiO_(2)@Ag), have been successfully synthesized and utilized as a substrate for SERS application in this thesis. As expected, this nanostructure exhibits numerous hotspots on the surface of SiO_(2) nanoparticle to enhance not only the sensitivity but also reproducibility of SERS signals. It is also capable of ultrasensitive quantitative SERS analysis. As a result, the SiO_(2)@Ag was used as a detection component to develop a chemical sensor based on SERS technique.
In Part A of the first chapter, SiO_(2)@Ag was first prepared to detect alternariol (AOH), a major mycotoxin of the genus Alternaria. The SiO_(2)@Ag showed high sensitivity and good linearity (R^(2) = 0.984) of SERS signal and AOH concentration from 16 to 1000 nM with a limit of detection (LOD) of 4.83 nM. The reliability of SERS method was also verified via high reproducibility of SERS signal of the AOH concentration from 10 to 10,000 nM to be from 2.33 to 5.95%.
In Part B, ligands were introduced on the surface of SiO_(2)@Ag to achieve the selectivity of SERS signal. Mono-6-deoxy-6-aminopropylamino-β-cyclodextrins were modified on the surface of SiO_(2)@Ag as a ligand to prepare pr-β-CD-functionalized SiO_(2)@Ag (SiO_(2)@Ag@pr-β-CD). For application, SiO_(2)@Ag@pr-β-CD had been used to recognize specific flavonoid among various flavonoids (quercetin, myricetin, naringenin and apigenin). SiO_(2)@Ag@pr-β-CD was able to detect quercetin corresponding to the LOD as low as 0.55 ppm. The relationship between the logarithm of the Que concentration and the Raman intensity of SiO_(2)@Ag@pr-β-CD showed good linearity in the range of 3.4 to 33.8 ppm (R^(2) = 0.997). The presence of pr-β-CD on the SiO_(2)@Ag surface indicates improving selectivity by showing that it captures quercetin or myricetin amongst other similar materials (naringenin and apigenin).
The main issues in developing quantitative analysis methods by uilizing SERS spectroscopy are the preparation of reliable SERS-active substances such as nanoparticle-based structures and the acquisition of the SERS signal without any disturbance which may change the SERS signal intensity and frequency. In the last chapter, for this, the seamless multi-layered core-shell nanoparticles with an embedded Raman label compound (RLC) as an internal standard (ML_(RLC) dots) was fabricated for quantitative SERS analysis. The SERS signal of the internal standard in the ML_(RLC) dots serves as a reference value to calibrate the SERS signal of the analyte. By using the ML_(RLC) dots, the SERS signal of target analyte was obtained at various concentrations while the SERS signal of the internal standard retained. Also, a ratiometric strategy used in the analysis, was proven to be practical through normalization of the relative SERS intensity. For application, the ML_(4‑BBT) dots with 4-bromobenzenethiol (4-BBT) as an internal standard are successfully applied for the quantitative analysis of 4-fluorobenzenethiol (4-FBT) and thiram. The concentration of 4-FBT estimated through 3-D calibration SERS curve showed an accuracy of less than 10% deviation. The lowest detectable amounts of thiram per apple peel was up to 24 ng·cm^(-2) in the application of ML_(4-BBT) dots
In general, the results suggest that strategies utilizing the assembled nanostructure, the ligands, internal standard and ratiometric analysis open a new approach to develop a highly precise and accurate chemical sensors based on SERS technique in our research.