Detection of pesticide residues on flexible and transparent fluorinated polyimide film based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy technology

Background Excessive pesticide residues will seriously endanger human health. The complexity and lag of the current popular analytical methods hinder the timeliness of food safety analysis. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) was an ultra-sensitive vibration spectroscopy technology with the advantages of less time cost, non-destructive and semi-quantitative detection, which has attracted much attention in the rapid field detection of pesticide residue. It was clear that we need an efficient and convenient substrate for pesticide residue detection based on SRES technology, which needs to be portable, flexible, transparent and easy to detect irregular object surfaces. Results A novel SERS sensor was designed to detect single and multi-component pesticide residues on irregular fruit and vegetable surfaces by in-situ growth of silver nanoparticles on a flexible and transparent fluorinated polyimide (FPI) substrate. Among them, Ag NPs were synthesized by liquid phase reduction method (AgNO 3 -PVP and NaBH 4 ). The results showed that the detection limit of 1–4 BDT was down to 10 −10  mol L −1 , the enhancement factor (EF) was up to 1.57 × 10 7 , and relative standard deviation (RSD) was 7.49 %. By this method, tricyclazole solution at a concentration of 0.01 mg L −1 was still detectable by the FPI@Ag SERS substrate. The linear quantification was achieved in the range from 100 mg L −1 to 0.01 mg L −1 . Two mixed pesticides, tricyclazole and imazalil, were also successfully distinguished. Significance This represents the formation of a flexible, foldable and transparent substrate for rapid on-site detection. Results can be obtained in <5 min by attaching the substrate to the substance to be tested. And the SERS substrate prepared with high sensitivity, stability, portable and convenient analysis, which provided new ideas for efficient and rapid household food safety detection.