Plasmonic silver particles reduced by contact-electro-catalysis with acoustic-solid interaction mechanism for enhancing SERS detection

Contact-electro-catalysis (CEC) has performed outstandingly in the organic degradation, precious metals reduction, and clean energy conversion. However, this interaction of ultrasonic and particles has not yet obtained a general change law. Herein, an acoustic-solid interaction is proposed and validated, elucidating the critical role of ultrasonic-inert particle synergy in CEC. Using methyl orange (MO) solution as dye probe and inert PTFE as the target particles, the particles enhance local acoustic pressure and modulate the standing wave acoustic field, breaking the cavitation threshold. Compared with the case without adding particles, the amplitude of the positive and negative acoustic wave increased by 16.22 and 25.53 times, respectively, when PTFE particles is added. Under ultrasonic-PTFE particle synergy, the kinetic constant for MO solution degradation reaches 2.489 h −1 ·(g·L −1 ). This value is more than 9 times higher than this without particle system. Furthermore, the PTFE-Ag composites prepared by CEC-in-situ reduction, in which the Ag-based materials demonstrate high crystallinity and uniform distribution characteristics. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technology based on PTFE-Ag enables highly sensitive detection of ciprofloxacin (10 −3 mol/L). This is attributed to the presence of Ag element can significantly enhance the SERS signal intensity, validating its potential applications in environmental restoration and pollutant detection.