Detection of acrylamide using a biodegradable zein-based sensor with surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy

•We developed a new biodegradable zein based nanophotonic sensor to detect acrylamide in model solutions.•We used Surface Enhanced Raman spectroscopy to measure the local concentration of acrylamide on the sensor.•We found a characteristic peak at 1447 cm−1.•The intensity of the peak obtained at different concentration correlated well with concentration and gave us an R2 of 0.93

In this study, a biodegradable zein/gold SERS platform was tested as a potential tool to detect acrylamide for the first time. It was found that the presence of acrylamide resulted in a characteristic marker SERS peak that did not exist in the background SERS spectrum of the sensor. This unique peak was at 1447 cm−1. This peak was used to detect and quantify acrylamide in aqueous solutions and a calibration curve was obtained using acrylamide solutions within the range of 10 mg/ml and 10 μg/ml. After 10 μg/ml of concentration, it was not possible to make reliable measurements. The error or variation for each concentration in the range of 0.4 mg/ml (for 1 mg/ml) – 1.8 mg/ml (for 10 mg/ml) was observed. SERS was found to be an accurate technique for quantification purposes, in the concentration range studied. The calibration curve had an R2 value of 0.93 and 0.97 (for log–log calibration curve). This was a proof-of-concept study to investigate the potential of a SERS sensor designed on a biodegradable platform and it was shown that this method can be potentially used with a careful design of acrylamide extraction from food samples.