Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for the Chemical Analysis of Food

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an emerging and promising technique for the chemical analysis of food. The use of metallic nanosubstrates improves the sensitivity and capacity of conventional Raman spectroscopy greatly. This paper comprehensively reviews the development and applications of SERS in the chemical analysis of food, mainly focusing on food additives and chemical contaminants. The progress of SERS development and their applications in chemical analysis of food, from detection and characterization of target analytes in simple solvents to complex food matrices, is summarized. The advantages and limitations of different SERS substrates and methodologies are discussed. As most of the current SERS research on chemical analysis of food is still in an early stage, there are still several hurdles for further advancing SERS techniques into real-world applications for complex food products. This review includes our perspectives on the future trends of the SERS technique in the field of food analysis.