Flexible SERS substrate of silver nanoparticles on cotton swabs for rapid detection of melamine.

It is important to be able to detect melamine a sensitive and fast method in the field of food safety. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has attracted much attention due to its high sensitivity, rapid results, unique spectroscopic fingerprint, and nondestructive data acquisition. In this work, we describe the preparation of flexible CS-ATS-Ag cotton swabs for use in SERS by anchoring silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), as a highly-sensitive SERS material, on cotton swabs (CS) using -[3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl] diethylenetriamine (ATS) as the coupling agent.