Advances in the Application of Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Quality Control of Cereal Foods

Cereal foods occupy a central position in the global food consumption structure. Staple foods such as wheat, rice, and corn provide essential nutrients like carbohydrates and proteins for billions of people. Long-term intake of these foods can reduce the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. However, the development of modern agriculture has caused some quality and safety issues such as pesticide residues, mycotoxin contamination, heavy metal residues, and illegal additives in the production, processing, and storage of cereal foods. Traditional detection techniques such as chromatography and mass spectroscopy have limitations including time-consuming procedures and high costs. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), with advantages of non-complex pretreatment, rapid detection, and high sensitivity, can accurately detect factors affecting cereal quality. This paper reviews the principles and substrate types of SERS first. Secondly, it systematically summarizes the research progress in the applications of SERS technology in cereal quality control from multiple aspects, including the detection of microbial contamination, pesticide residues, and heavy metal residues. Finally, it provides an outlook on SERS technology. SERS is expected to further improve the accuracy and efficiency of quality control for cereal foods through the development of new substrates, combination with other detection technologies, and intelligent data analysis methods.