title: Plasmonic-polymer hybrid hollow microbeads for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) ultradetection.
abstract: Hybrid composites are known to add functionality to plasmonic nanomaterials. Although these substrates can be produced by common synthetic methods, the percentage of metal loaded into the functional material is usually small. Herein, we exploit a phase inversion precipitation method to incorporate large amounts of silver nanoparticles inside the polymeric matrix of polysulfone microbeads. The composite material combines the high SERS activity resulting from the plasmonic coupling of highly interacting nanoparticles and the ability to accumulate analytes of the polysulfone porous support. This allows for the quantitative SERS detection down to the nanomolar level, with a liner response that extends over an impressive concentration range of five orders of magnitude.
authors: Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Països Catalans, 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Centro de Tecnologia Quimica de Cataluña and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carrer de Marcel•lí Domingo s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Trojanowska
authors: Centro de Tecnologia Quimica de Cataluña and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carrer de Marcel•lí Domingo s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Medcom Advance SA, Viladecans Business Park - Edificio Brasil, Bertran i Musitu 83-85, 08840 Viladecans - Barcelona, Spain.
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Pazos-Perez
authors: Centro de Tecnologia Quimica de Cataluña and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carrer de Marcel•lí Domingo s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors: Cinta
authors: C
authors: Panisello
authors: Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Països Catalans, 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors: Tania
authors: T
authors: Gumi
authors: Centro de Tecnologia Quimica de Cataluña and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carrer de Marcel•lí Domingo s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Medcom Advance SA, Viladecans Business Park - Edificio Brasil, Bertran i Musitu 83-85, 08840 Viladecans - Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: luca.guerrini@ctqc.org.
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Guerrini
authors: Centro de Tecnologia Quimica de Cataluña and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Carrer de Marcel•lí Domingo s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Medcom Advance SA, Viladecans Business Park - Edificio Brasil, Bertran i Musitu 83-85, 08840 Viladecans - Barcelona, Spain; ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: ramon.alvarez@urv.cat.
authors: Ramon A
authors: RA
authors: Alvarez-Puebla
keywords: Analyte accumulation; Hot-spots; Hybrid materials; Metallic nanoparticles; Microbeads; Phase inversion precipitation; Plasmonic; Polysulfone; Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy; Ultradetection