A facile and label-free SERS approach for inspection of fipronil in chicken eggs using SiO2@Au core/shell nanoparticles

Muhammad Muhammad; Guohua Yao; Jie Zhong; Kuanglin Chao; Muhammad Hammad Aziz; Qing Huang

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2019.120324

A facile and label-free SERS approach for inspection of fipronil in chicken eggs using SiO₂@Au core/shell nanoparticles

Talanta. 2020 Jan 15:207:120324. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2019.120324. Epub 2019 Sep 6.

Authors

Muhammad Muhammad¹, Guohua Yao², Jie Zhong¹, Kuanglin Chao³, Muhammad Hammad Aziz⁴, Qing Huang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China; University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China.
² Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China.
³ Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Beltsville, MD, 20705, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan.
⁵ Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China; University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. Electronic address: huangq@ipp.ac.cn.

PMID: 31594576
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2019.120324

Abstract

Fipronil is a phenylpyrazole insecticide commonly used in agriculture and residential applications. In this paper, we reported a novel label-free surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) method for detection of fipronil residues in chicken eggs (mostly accumulated on the egg membrane). We fabricated the SERS substrates composed of the SiO₂@Au core/shell nanoparticles and probed the contamination of fipronil residue on the egg membrane. The identification of the characteristic Raman bands of fipronil was achieved with the aid of density functional theory (DFT) calculation, with which we could analyzed the trace amount of fipronil in a quantitative way. As such, this work may provide a practical solution to quick inspection of fipronil contamination in chicken eggs or other foods.

Keywords: Chicken eggs; Density functional theory (DFT); Fipronil; Gold nanoparticles; Pesticide; Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).