Towards TiO2Ag porous nanocomposites based SERS sensors for chemical pollutant detection

Since the TiO2 environmental friendly character and the affinity of a large variety of molecules to bind to the silver surfaces are well-known, novel porous nanoarchitectures based on TiO2 aerogel and Ag colloidal particles deposited on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrate were obtained. The ability of the deposited porous structures to detect by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) contaminant species adsorbed from aqueous media was tested. The morphological particularities of the bulk samples during the deposition on the PMMA substrates were preserved. The SERS detection efficiency was assessed by using congo red as a test molecule. No matter the average size of the Ag nanoparticles, the lowest detectable concentrations were found be of around 5 × 10−6 M for all samples. The morphological parameters such as median pore diameter and cumulative pore volume were also taken into consideration when discussing the detection performances. Moreover, calibration curves have been obtained in order to estimate an unknown concentration of the analyte. The obtained results show the real potential of the prepared porous composites for further use in the development of new SERS-based sensors for monitoring of water quality, especially when the contaminants are dye molecules.