In order to prompt the appearance of the shrimp color, sodium metabisulfite is frequently added in shrimp processing, which is, however, prohibited in China and many other countries. This study aimed to establish a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) method for screening sodium metabisulfite residues on shrimp surfaces, in a non-destructive manner. The analysis was carried out using a portable Raman spectrometer jointly with copy paper loaded with silver nanoparticles as the substrate material. The SERS response of sodium metabisulfite gives two fingerprint peaks at 620 (strong) and 927 (medium) cm-1, respectively. This enabled unambiguous confirmation of the targeted chemical. The sensitivity of the SERS detection method was determined to be 0.1 mg/mL, which was equal to residual sodium metabisulfite on the shrimp surface at 0.31 mg/kg. The quantitative relationship between the 620 cm-1 peak intensities and the concentrations of sodium metabisulfite was established. The linear fitting equation was y = 2375x + 8714 with R2 = 0.985. Reaching an ideal balance in simplicity, sensitivity, and selectivity, this study demonstrates that the proposed method is ideally suitable for in-site and non-destructive screening of sodium metabisulfite residues in seafood.
Keywords: AgNPs; copy paper; shrimp; sodium metabisulfite; surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.