Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles Coated Polymer Spheres as SERS Substrate for the Detection of TNT Explosives

In this paper, we fabricated the 4-aminobenzenethiol modified gold nanoparticles onto polymer spheres as SERS substrate to selectively detect 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives. The gold nanoseeds were fixed on polymer surface by reduction of HAuCl4·3H2O with sodium citrate. About 60~100nm nanoparticles were formed from the previous seeds and self-assembled by 4-aminobenzenethiol. The functionalized gold nanopartilces aggregation coated on large polymer sphere surface not only absorbed more TNT molecules via conjugation system, but also generated numerous "hot spots". It was demonstrated that this substrate displayed high SERS activity for TNT detection. It could also be anticipated that the aforementioned material would be used for fast and sensitive SERS detection of TNT in real-world situation. Keywords: gold nanopartilces, SERS, TNT, functionalization