Functional paper-based SERS substrate for rapid and sensitive detection of Sudan dyes in herbal medicine

There has been an increasing demand for rapid and sensitive techniques for the identification of Sudan compounds that emerged as the most often illegally added fat-soluble dyes in herbal medicine. In this report, we have designed and fabricated a functionalized filter paper consisting of gold nanorods (GNRs) and mono-6-thio-cyclodextrin (HS-β-CD) as a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate, in which the GNR provides sufficient SERS enhancement, and the HS-β-CD with strong chemical affinity toward GNR provides the inclusion compound to capture hydrophobic molecules. Moreover, the CD-GNR were uniformly assembled on filter paper cellulose through the electrostatic adsorption and hydrogen bond, so that the CD-GNR paper-based SERS substrate (CD-GNR-paper) demonstrated higher sensitivity for the determination of Sudan III (0.1μM) and Sudan IV (0.5μM) than GNRs paper-based SERS substrate (GNR-paper), with high stability after the storage in the open air for 90days. Importantly, CD-GNR-paper can effectively collect the Sudan dyes from illegally adulterated onto samples of Resina Draconis with a simple operation, further open up new exciting opportunity for SERS detection of more compounds illegally added with high sensitivity and fast signal responses.