Trace Cd2+ ions detection on the flower-like Ag@CuO substrate

Abstract

CuO flower-like material (FM) was prepared via the facile hydrothermal method, and Ag nanoparticles were deposited on the CuO FM to obtain Ag@CuO composite. Rhodamine 6G (R6G) was used as the probe molecule on Ag@CuO FM substrate to study surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). It is discovered that it exhibited an excellent SERS performance with limit of detection of 3.58 × 10−16 M and enhancement factor (EF) of 3.99 × 1010. More importantly, we used it as a SERS substrate to detect cadmium ions and found that its limit of detection (LOD) reaches up to 2.6 × 10−8 M, which is lower than the highest allowable Cd2+ concentration in drinking water set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Therefore, the proposed composite can be applicable to the detection of Cd2+ in drinking water and in soil.