A Widely Applicable Silver Sol for TLC Detection with Rich and Stable SERS Features.
Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) coupled with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has gained tremendous popularity in the study of various complex systems. However, the detection of hydrophobic analytes is difficult, and the specificity still needs to be improved. In this study, a SERS-active non-aqueous silver sol which could activate the analytes to produce rich and stable spectral features was rapidly synthesized. Then, the optimized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)-DMF sol was employed for TLC-SERS detection of hydrophobic (and also hydrophilic) analytes. SERS performance of this sol was superior to that of traditional Lee-Meisel AgNPs due to its high specificity, acceptable stability, and wide applicability. The non-aqueous AgNPs would be suitable for the TLC-SERS method, which shows great promise for applications in food safety assurance, environmental monitoring, medical diagnoses, and many other fields.
Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai 9th People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 280 Mo He Rd, Shanghai, 201999, China.
Qingxia
Q
Zhu
Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Hao
H
Li
Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Feng
F
Lu
Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Yifeng
Y
Chai
Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai 9th People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 280 Mo He Rd, Shanghai, 201999, China. nmxyyf@126.com.
Yongfang
Y
Yuan
N,N-Dimethylformamide; Non-aqueous silver sols; Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy; Thin-layer chromatography