title: Rapid, quantitative analysis of ppm/ppb nicotine using surface-enhanced Raman scattering from polymer-encapsulated Ag nanoparticles (gel-colls).
abstract: Rapid, quantitative SERS analysis of nicotine at ppm/ppb levels has been carried out using stable and inexpensive polymer-encapsulated Ag nanoparticles (gel-colls). The strongest nicotine band (1030 cm(-1)) was measured against d(5)-pyridine internal standard (974 cm(-1)) which was introduced during preparation of the stock gel-colls. Calibration plots of I(nic)/I(pyr) against the concentration of nicotine were non-linear but plotting I(nic)/I(pyr) against [nicotine](x)(x = 0.6-0.75, depending on the exact experimental conditions) gave linear calibrations over the range (0.1-10 ppm) with R(2) typically ca. 0.998. The RMS prediction error was found to be 0.10 ppm when the gel-colls were used for quantitative determination of unknown nicotine samples in 1-5 ppm level. The main advantages of the method are that the gel-colls constitute a highly stable and reproducible SERS medium that allows high throughput (50 sample h(-1)) measurements.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, David Keir Building, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland BT9 5AG, UK. S.Bell@qub.ac.uk
authors.forename: Steven E J
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.forename: Narayana M S
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Sirimuthu
mesh_terms: D049329:Nanostructures; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods; D009538:Nicotine / Q000032:analysis*; D011108:Polymers; D012834:Silver; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D012834:Silver; D009538:Nicotine