Journal of Food and Drug Analysis (JFDA)
【Update Date:2020-06-17】unit:
Rapid identification of nicotine in electronic cigarette liquids based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering
Jun-Yi Chien a, Yong-Chun Gu a, Hsin-Mei Tsai a, Chun-Hao Liu b, Chia-Yuan Yen b, Yuh-Lin Wang a,c, Juen-Kai Wang a,d, Chi-Hung Lin b,e,f,g,*
a Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
b Department of Health, New Taipei City Government, New Taipei City, Taiwan
c Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei,Taiwan
d Center for Condensed Matter Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
e Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
f Institute of Food Safety and Health Risk Assessment, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
g Department of Biological Science & Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Nicotine-containing electronic cigarette liquid (e-liquid) is prohibited in many countries, creating requirements for rapid detection approaches for on-site inspection or screening for large amounts of samples. Here, we demonstrate a simple way to identify nicotine using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with substrates made of silver nanoparticle arrays imbedded in anodic aluminum oxide nanochannels (Ag/AAO). Compared with the reported colloidal nanoparticle-based SERS, that required serial dilutions to enable colloid aggregation in the viscous e-liquid, a small amount of undiluted e-liquid sample can be directly added onto our solid-phase Ag/AAO substrate without any pre-treatment. The sensitivity of our SERS measurements is 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than that required for identification of nicotine in e-liquid, which is typically around 1000-18,000 ppm. Using such nanoparticle array-based SERS, we have tested 22 commercially available e-liquid products, using the corresponding gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) reports as the reference. The SERS measurements were done within one hour and successfully identified 20 samples. Only 2 samples showed SERS interference from ingredients that were not suitable for SERS analysis.
Keywords: Electronic cigarette liquid, Nicotine, SERS
https://doi.org/10.38212/2224-6614.1064.
(https://www.jfda-online.com/journal/vol28/iss2/11/)