A one-pot hydrothermal synthesis of Fe-doped MoS2 nanoflowers (Fe-MoS2 NFs) has been developed as a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate. The Fe-MoS2 NFs display high reproducibility, stability, and recyclability, which is beneficial for the development of the sustainable ecological environment. The SERS substrate provides a high enhancement factor of 105, which can be ascribed to the inducing defects by doping Fe that can improve the charge transfer between probe molecules and MoS2. The Fe-MoS2 NFs have been used to detect bilirubin in serum. The Fe-MoS2 NF SERS substrate exhibits a linear detection range from 10-3 to 10-9 M with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 10-8 M. The substrate displays an excellent selectivity to bilirubin in the presence of other potentially interfering molecules (dextrose and phosphate). These results provide a novel concept to synthesize ultra-sensitive SERS substrates and open up a wide range of possibilities for new applications of MoS2 in clinical diagnosis.
Keywords: Bilirubin; Enhancement mechanism; Fe-doped MoS2; SERS; Trace detection.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.