Fabrication of porous ZnO/Co₃O₄ nanohybrids for the application of surface enhanced Raman scattering

With the growing use of various pesticides, it is important to develop facile and sensitive method to detect pesticides residues in food. Here, a semiconductor/magnetic hybrid material was used as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate to detect simulated residues. The representative sample of porous ZnO/Co₃O₄ nano-cube was fabricated by pyrolysis and calcination of Zn-Co ZIF, successively. The obtained hybrid of ZnO/Co₃O₄ was employed as substrate to detect of crystal violet (CV) and Rhodamine B (Rh B), and showed remarkable SERS performance. The detection limit of Rh B was 1 × 10^-10 M as well as CV of 1 × 10^-9 M. The results indicated that it was an ideal choice to improve the SERS property of transition metal oxide substrates by doping semiconductor. The semiconductor/magnetic hybrid material highlighted the obvious characteristics of low cost, facile preparation and ultra-low detection limit in the SERS measurements. The hybrids with the combination of semiconductor/magnetic properties showed a further widely application and development in SERS detection of pesticides residues.