Label-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering strategy for rapid detection of penicilloic acid in milk products

A label-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) strategy based on silver-coated gold nanoparticles (Au@Ag NPs) was developed for rapid detection of penicilloic acid (PA) in milk products. It has been demonstrated that core size and shell thickness of Au@Ag NPs are two critical variants affecting enhancement of Raman signals by coupling of two plasma resonance absorption. The Au@Ag NPs with 26-nm core and 9-nm Ag shell exhibit excellent Raman enhancement, in particular, upon the formation of hot spots through NPs aggregation induced by interaction between target molecules and Au@Ag NPs. Compared to the early studies limited to laboratory settings, our analytical approach is simple (without sample pretreatment), less time-consuming (within ∼3 min) and inexpensive. The limit of detection of PA is 3.00 ppm, 3.00 ppm and 4.00 ppm in liquid milk, yogurt and milk powder, respectively. The label-free SERS technique offers a potential for the on-site monitoring of chemical contaminants in milk products.