High-performance detection of p-nitroaniline on defect-graphene SERS substrate utilizing molecular imprinting technique

Abstract

Abstract We report a novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for detecting p-nitroaniline (PNA) in real water samples, which possesses excellent sensitivity, good selectivity, and high SERS activity. Specifically, the uniform distribution structure of defect-graphene/Ag (DG/Ag) is obtained by acid etching graphene loading silver nanoparticles. The Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) film is copolymerized on the surface of DG/Ag by function monomer, crosslinker and template of PNA. A DG/Ag-MIP SERS substrate is obtained through polymerization of molecular imprinted polymer (MIP) on defect-graphene/Ag (DG/Ag) supporting materials. Our results signify that this new SERS substrate reveals excellent performance for PNA with an enhancement factor of 2.42×107. Moreover, DG/Ag-MIP substrate exhibits outstanding capability to detect PNA molecules with detection limit approximately reaching 1.0×10-14 M. These experimental results imply that the DG/Ag-MIP SERS substrate possesses potential application for sensing detection of PNA in environment.