A reagent-assisted method in SERS detection of methyl salicylate

With the explosive application of methyl salicylate (MS) molecules in food and cosmetics, the further detection of MS molecules becomes particularly important. Here we investigated the detection of MS molecules based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in a novel molecule/assistant/metal system constructed with MS, 4,4'-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) bis (benzoic acid) and Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs). The minimum detection concentration is 10^-4 M. To explore the function of assisted reagent, we also referred another system without assistant molecules. The result demonstrates that SERS signals were not acquired, which proves that the assistant molecules are critical for the capture of MS molecules. Two possible mechanisms of MS/assistant/AgNPs system were speculated through two patterns of hydrogen bonds. The linker molecules acted as the role of the bridge between metallic substrates and target molecules through the molecular recognition. This strategy is very beneficial to the expanding of MS detection techniques and other hydrogen bond based coupling detections with SERS.