Analytical Sciences

SERS-active Ag Nanostars Substrates for Sensitive Detection of Ethyl Carbamate in Wine

Manli LI, Yuan ZHAO, Malin CUI, Chan WANG, and Qijun SONG

The Key Laboratory of Food Colloids and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China

A simple and sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) method for the detection of ethyl carbamate (EC) is reported in this work. Star-shaped silver nanostars (Ag NSs) were used as a novel SERS substrate. In comparison to other plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs), including Au NPs, Au NSs and Ag NPs, Ag NSs exhibit best SERS activity. Raman signal of EC at a trace level can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude with the help of Ag NSs. The Raman intensity of EC increased linearly with an increase of the EC concentration in the range from 5 × 10⁻⁹ mol L⁻¹ to 1.0 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹ with detection limit (LOD) of 1.37 × 10⁻⁹ mol L⁻¹ (S/N = 3). The developed SERS approach also has the advantages of being simple, fast and requiring less amount of the sample. It could serve as a useful technology for the rapid determination of EC in both alcoholic beverages and fermented food.

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