Determination of chemical hazards in foods using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy coupled with advanced separation techniques

•Overview of the concept and technique of tandem SERS methods.•Application of four types of tandem SERS methods to detect food chemical hazards.•Future trends to apply SERS methods to determine food chemical contamination.

BackgroundSurface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been validated as a highly accurate and specific technique for the discrimination, identification, and potential quantification of different types of chemical compounds. However, its application for the detection of potential hazardous chemical targets in foods has not yet been well developed due to interferences from the complicated food matrices, which could lead to challenges in spectral deconvolution and interpretation. The accurate separation and enrichment of the analyte from food samples are major challenges for analytical chemists and food technologists.Scope and approachFour promising “capturing” techniques (molecularly imprinted polymers, aptamer, antibody, and microfluidics) coupled with SERS were introduced in this review paper for the reliable and ultrafast determination of chemical hazards in food systems. These developed “one-step” or “two-step” SERS methods can achieve accurate and sensitive detection of trace level chemical hazards in agricultural products including foods.Key findings and conclusionsTandem SERS methods can be applied for rapid and reliable detection of trace level of chemical hazards in foods.