Rapid Quantitative Detection of Deltamethrin in <i>Corydalis yanhusuo</i> by SERS Coupled with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

• Main Authors: Hui Zhang, Pengcheng Nie, Zhengyan Xia, Xuping Feng, Xiaoxi Liu, Yong He
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Molecules
• Subjects: Chinese herbal medicines; pesticide residues; surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy; pretreatment method; prediction models
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/25/18/4081

With the increase in demand, artificially planting Chinese medicinal materials (CHMs) has also increased, and the ensuing pesticide residue problems have attracted more and more attention. An optimized quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) method with multi-walled carbon nanotubes as dispersive solid-phase extraction sorbents coupled with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) was first proposed for the detection of deltamethrin in complex matrix <i>Corydalis yanhusuo</i>. Our results demonstrate that using the optimized QuEChERS method could effectively extract the analyte and reduce background interference from <i>Corydalis</i>. Facile synthesized gold nanoparticles with a large diameter of 75 nm had a strong SERS enhancement for deltamethrin determination. The best prediction model was established with partial least squares regression of the SERS spectra ranges of 545~573 cm⁻¹ and 987~1011 cm⁻¹ with a coefficient of determination (<i>R</i>²) of 0.9306, a detection limit of 0.484 mg/L and a residual predictive deviation of 3.046. In summary, this article provides a new rapid and effective method for the detection of pesticide residues in CHMs.