Silver Nanoparticle-Immobilized Cotton Fabric Serves as Flexible Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrate for Detection of Toxin

Abstract

We designed composite materials containing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and cotton fabric (CF). The cellulose in cotton fabric contains -OH groups. These -OH groups were deprotonated by a pretreatment process, and Ag+ ions were allowed to bind. In the consecutive step, the Ag+ ions were reduced to fiber-bound AgNPs, generating AgNP@CF. Three different AgNP@CF composites were created, varying the concentration of the precursor AgNO3 solution. The composite materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), and FTIR spectroscopy. The AgNP@CF composites were assessed for the detection of toxins using the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique.

Keywords

• cellulose fiber
• silver nanoparticles
• toxins
• SERS
• analyte