Polymer mat prepared via Forcespinning™ as a SERS platform for immobilization and detection of bacteria from blood plasma

•Forcespinning™ method to create a polymer mat with nanosized fibers is applied.•Polymer mat covered with thin layer of gold-silver alloy works as a SERS-active platform.•Platform works as a filter, thus allows to filter and immobilize bacteria from fluid.•Three bacterial species: S. aureus, P. aeruginosa and S. Typhimurium are detected from blood plasma.

One of potential applications of nano- and microscale polymer fibers is SERS-active platforms for the detection of biological compounds and microorganisms. This paper demonstrates the polymer mat obtained with Forcespinning™ technique used to detect the bacteria from blood plasma. Forcespinning™ is a new method of manufacturing of polymer fibers which can be applied to variety of polymer materials, e.g. polyethylene, nylon, PA6 and others. The method is based on the centrifugal force to draw fiber from molten polymer, which allows tuning the diameter of the fiber from tens of nanometers up to micrometers. Wide range of diameters makes the forcespun polymer mat an excellent material to filter bacteria from fluids (e.g. blood plasma, water). Covering the mat with Au:Ag alloy turns it into a SERS platform able to immobilize, detect, and identify bacteria. We provide proof-of-concept, showing detection of S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, and S. Typhimurium from blood plasma.

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