Rapid detection of melamine in milk liquid and powder by surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate array

Publications

Rapid detection of melamine in milk liquid and powder by surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate array

Year : 2015

Publisher : Elsevier Ltd

Source Title : Food Control

Document Type :

Abstract

To determine the artificial additives in dairy products, we demonstrate a simple method for rapid and massive determination of melamine in milk liquid and powder samples by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique. The developed method utilizes silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) decorated on a cylindrical support for detecting as low as 5μL of sample without any drying procedure. Importantly, the linear range for melamine in water was 5-400parts per billion (ppb) with a low detection limit of 2.5ppb (S/N=3). In addition, for analysis of melamine in milk liquid and powder, the dilution method was successfully applied to suppress the matrix effect from real samples. Interestingly, our results indicate that a dilution factor of 75 could effectively reduce the matrix effect with partially sacrificing the sensitivity in detection. The detection limit is increased to 2parts per million (ppm) in real sample detection, which is close to the acceptable limits regulated in milk products. More importantly, the elimination of complicated sample pre-treatments and the acceptable sensitivity in melamine detection attest our proposed method as a potential tool for rapid and massive food inspections.