ABSTRACT
Objective To prepare novel alkanethiol modified magnetic silver flower nanoparticles as SERS substrate to chloramphenicol for Raman detection and to determine their enhancement effect.Methods An alkanethiol was chosen as a surface modifier of the substrate and was self-assembled onto the magnetic silver flower nanoparticle surface.The chloram-phenicol molecules were enriched to the surface of the substrate by hydrophobic interaction and the effect for detection of chloramphenicol SERS signal was enhanced.Results It was found that the 1-hexanethiol-modified SERS substrate was able to lead to stronger enhancement than 1-dodecanethiol and octadecanethiol.Fe3 O4@SiO2-Ag-C6 was used to detect the chloramphenicol (10 -3 -10 -10 mol/L) and chloramphenicol in milk (10 -3 -10 -9 mol/L) by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.The detection limits were 0.1 nmol/L (32 ppt) and 1 nmol/L (323 ppt) respectively.Conclusion Alkanethiol modified magnetic silver flower nanoparticles are a highly active SERS substrate, which can be used for detection of low concentrations of analytical substances.