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Breaking theSize Barrier: SERS-Based UltrasensitiveDetection and Quantification of Polystyrene Plastics in Real WaterSamples
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Researchers introduced a SERS-based detection platform capable of identifying and quantifying polystyrene plastic particles of diverse sizes in real water samples with ultrasensitive detection limits, offering a practical tool for environmental microplastic monitoring.
Plastic pollution has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge, posing substantial risks to ecosystems’ stability, biodiversity conservation, and public health protection. However, technique limitations persist in detecting and analyzing plastic particles within complex environmental matrices. This study introduces an ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based method for detecting and precisely quantifying polystyrene (PS) plastic particles of various sizes in real-world aqueous samples. The developed SERS platform integrates urchin-like silver nanoparticles, generating high-density SERS hotspots, with a slippery polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brush surface for effective analyte enrichment. The synergistic combination achieves exceptional detection performance for dichloromethane (DCM)-dispersed polystyrene plastic particles across broad size ranges, demonstrating a remarkable detection limit of 2.57 × 10–5 mg/mL. The established quantitative relationship follows log I = 0.4501 log C + 4.1869 (R2 = 0.9899), confirming excellent analytical reliability. This advancement provides a robust analytical framework for environmental monitoring applications, particularly offering a novel approach for detecting microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) in real water samples.
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Breaking the Size Barrier: SERS-Based Ultrasensitive Detection and Quantification of Polystyrene Plastics in Real Water Samples
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Researchers developed a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) method capable of detecting and quantifying polystyrene plastic particles of various sizes — including nanoplastics — in real environmental water samples at ultrasensitive concentrations.
A Highly Sensitive SERS Substrate for Detection of Nanoplastics in Water
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Researchers developed a highly sensitive SERS-based substrate for detecting nanoplastic particles in water at very low concentrations. Improved detection tools for nanoplastics are essential for monitoring their presence in drinking water and understanding exposure risks to human health.
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Researchers developed and evaluated analytical methods for trace-level quantification of polystyrene microplastics and nanoplastics in natural water samples, addressing key challenges in sensitivity and accuracy that limit realistic environmental risk assessment.
Size- and matrix-independent SERS quantification of polystyrene nanoplastics using interfacially assembled AgNPs@CTAB films
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Researchers fabricated a two-phase interfacially assembled silver nanoparticle SERS substrate that quantifies polystyrene nanoplastics across the 29–100 nm size range without size-dependent bias, achieving detection limits as low as 0.049 µg/mL with strong reproducibility across tap, river, drinking, and seawater matrices.
A dual-functional SERS platform based on silver aerogel for detection of polystyrene nanoplastics in environmental water
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Researchers fabricated a three-dimensional silver aerogel that simultaneously concentrates nanoplastics through evaporative enrichment and generates dense plasmonic hotspots for SERS detection, achieving limits of detection as low as 2.47 × 10⁻⁵ mg/mL for polystyrene particles ranging from 50 to 400 nm in both tap water and metal-impacted river water.
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