Gold nanoparticles for surface-enhanced Raman scattering detection of benzyldimethyldodecylammonium chloride at low concentration.

The oil and gas industry plays a vital role in the global economy. The production process has several critical conditions and can expose metals to corrosion. Surfactants like the quaternary ammonium salt Benzyldimethyldodecylammonium Bromide (BDAC) are currently used to prevent corrosions; classical methods for determining these surfactants have problems in saline samples and usually present high costs. In this context, spectroscopic techniques become an excellent alternative for quaternary ammonium salts detection. Here, a SERS (surface-enhanced Raman scattering) sensor based on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) synthesized through chemical reduction was used as an alternative method for BDAC detection. We detected BDAC at low concentrations in water solutions: at 5 to 30 ppm (1.47 × 10 mol L to 8.82 × 10 mol L); and had the vibration attempt attribute analyzed. A new study of quaternary ammonium compounds using AuNPs and SERS with a different, easy, and repeatable approach to spectra acquisition is presented and shows to be a promising method applied in quaternary ammonium salt compounds detection for the oil and gas industry.