HPTLC plus SRES screening of pesticide for point-of-care application as shown with thiram in juice

In this study, a HPTLC-platformed SERS detection was established for screening thiram in juice. After a simple extraction, the sample liquid was separated on HPTLC plates, which resulted in a specific zone for the analyte. Following infiltration with atomize water, the band of interest was easily scraped off and eluted. In parallel, a flexible and SERS-active substrate was fabricated by the in-situ synthesis of gold nanoparticles within cotton fabrics. Under optimized conditions, fingerprint-like signal at 1376 cm-1 of the analyte were easily recorded by a hand-held Raman spectrometer with enough LOD (0.5 mg/L), LOQ (0.9 mg/L) and reproducibility (<11.7%). The optimized screening system was further validated with pear, apple and mango juice by determining the spike-and-recovery rates (75.6 to 112.8%). It was demonstrated that this method could be a facile point-of-care testing system tailored for pesticide screening.

Automated summary

In this study, a HPTLC-platformed SERS detection method was developed for the screening of thiram in juice. The sample liquid was separated on HPTLC plates and the specific zone for the analyte was obtained. By infiltrating with atomized water, the band of interest was easily scraped off and eluted. A flexible and SERS-active substrate was fabricated by in-situ synthesis of gold nanoparticles within cotton fabrics. Under optimized conditions, the analyte's fingerprint-like signal at 1376 cm-1 was easily recorded by a hand-held Raman spectrometer, with LOD (0.5 mg/L), LOQ (0.9 mg/L), and reproducibility (<11.7%). The developed screening system was validated with pear, apple, and mango juice using spike-and-recovery rates (75.6 to 112.8%). This study demonstrates the feasibility of this method as a facile point-of-care testing system for pesticide screening.