Au@Ag-TGANPs based SERS for facile screening of thiabendazole and ferbam in liquid milk

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy based on thioglycolic acid (TGA) functionalized silver-coated gold nanoparticles (Au@Ag-TGANPs) was developed for the facile screening of thiabendazole (TBZ) and ferbam (0.025–10 ppm) in liquid milk for the first time. Results showed that silver-coated gold nanoparticles (Au@AgNPs) with a core size of 32 nm and a shell thickness of 5 nm was successfully modified with 3 nm TGA. The sensitive Au@Ag-TGANPs could enhance TBZ and ferbam signals by factors of 6.4 × 10 4 and 9.8 × 10 4 , respectively, and achieved the detection of TBZ and ferbam with limits of detection of 0.12 and 0.003 ppm, R 2 of 0.988 and 0.9821, percent recoveries of 88–103% and of 87.2–103.5%, and relative standard deviations of 4.1–9.2% and 3.5–8.3%, respectively. The current simple and green method could thus be used to detect other unsafe chemicals in future studies.