Xenobiotic Contamination of Water by Plastics and Pesticides Revealed Through Real-time, Ultrasensitive and Reliable Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering

摘要： Uncontrolled utilization and consequent ubiquitous percolation of carcinogenic and xenobiotic contaminants, such as plasticizers and pesticides, into ecosystem has created an immediate demand for robust analytical detection techniques to identify their presence in water. Addressing this demand, we uncover the presence of xenobiotic contaminants such as Bisphenol A (BPA), Triclosan (TC), and Dimethoate (DM) through a robust, ultrasensitive and reliable Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) platform. Thereby, conclusive real-time evidence of degradation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) leading to release of BPA in water is presented. Worryingly, the release of BPA occurs at ambient temperature (40 0C) and within realistic timescales (12 hours) that are regularly encountered during the handling, transport and storage of PET-based water containers. Complementary mass-spectrometric, surface-specific atomic force microscopy and surface selective X-ray Photoelectron spectroscopy confirms the nanoscale surface degradation of PET through loss of C=O and C-O surface functionalities. Such ultra-sensitive (ppm-level), spectroscopic detection is enabled by the bottom-up assemblies of metal nanoparticles (Soret Colloids, SCs) acting as SERS platform to provide high analytical enhancement factor (108) with high reliability (relative standard deviation, RSD <5%). Effective and rapid detection (30 s) of several other potential xenobiotic contaminants such as Triclosan (TC) and Dimethoate (DM) over a wide range of concentrations (10-5 to 10-1 M) has also been demonstrated. Finally, non-destructive real-time spectroscopic “sniffing” of organophosphorous pesticides from the surface of fruits is achieved, illustrating the multi-phasic versatility of this label-free, non-lithography-based SERS platform.