Visual and light scattering spectrometric method for the detection of melamine using uracil 5′-triphosphate sodium modified gold nanoparticles

A highly selective method was presented for colorimetric determination of melamine using uracil 5'-triphosphate sodium modified gold nanoparticles (UTP-Au NPs) in this paper. Specific hydrogen-bonding interaction between uracil base (U) and melamine resulted in the aggregation of AuNPs, displaying variations of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) features such as color change from red to blue and enhanced localized surface plasmon resonance light scattering (ISPR-LS) signals. Accordingly, the concentration of melamine could be quantified based on naked eye or a spectrometric method. This method was simple, inexpensive, environmental friendly and highly selective, which has been successfully used for the detection of melamine in pretreated liquid milk products with high recoveries. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.