2024-08-07 13:21:24
Pesticides and herbicides are important to ensure food security around the world, but these substances can also pose a health risk to people who unknowingly consume them. Sensitive analytical methods are necessary to identify trace levels too of dangerous substances. Now, researchers have developed a high-tech imaging method to detect pesticide damage at low levels, and its application on fruit shows that current food safety practices may not be enough. The conclusions are published in an article in ‘Nano Letters’, the journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
A method of analysis called surface Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is gaining popularity as a non-destructive method for detecting modern agricultural chemicals in plants. With SERS, metal nanoparticles or nanosheets are used to capture the signals created by materials when exposed to a Raman laser beam.
The patterns created by the light scattering of the enriched metal act as molecular signatures and can be used to identify small amounts of specific compounds. Aiming to improve the sensitivity of SERS for pesticide detection, Dongdong Ye, Ke Zheng, Shaobo Han and their colleagues designed a metal-coated membrane that can be placed on agricultural products. They also want to develop the tool to be versatile enough to adapt to many other applications.
The researchers started with a cellulose hydrogel film, which they stretched to form nanometer-sized wrinkles that fit your face. They then dipped the films into a silver salt solution to coat the grooves with SERS-enhanced silver nanoparticles. The resulting polymer is highly flexible and transparent to visible light, important characteristics for detecting SERS signals.
In testing silver-coated silver foil for food safety applications, Researchers sprayed the pesticides thiram and carbendazimalone or together, on the apples, they air dry the fruits, then they wash them to imitate the daily practices.
When they placed the skin on the apples, SERS detected the pesticides on the apples, even though the chemicals were in low concentrations. The team was also able to clearly resolve the scattered light signatures for each pesticide in cantaloupes sprayed with thiram and carbendazim, as well as detect pesticide damage by Peel the fruit and in the outermost layer not difficult.
These results suggest that washing alone may not be enough to prevent absorption of pesticides and it will be necessary to peel them to remove possible damage from the skin and outer pulp, the researchers said. In addition to apples, they also used the SERS membrane system to detect pesticides in cucumbers, shrimp, chili powder, and rice.
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