The technique uses flame-sprayed nanoparticles made from silver to increase the signal of chemicals.
“Reports show that up to half of all fruits sold in the EU contain pesticide residues that in larger quantities have been linked to human health problems,” said Georgios Sotiriou, the study’s corresponding author.
“However, current techniques for detecting pesticides on single products before consumption are restricted in practice by the high cost and cumbersome manufacturing of its sensors. To overcome this, we developed inexpensive and reproducible nano-sensors that could be used to monitor traces of fruit pesticides at, for example, the store.”
The new nano-sensors employ a 1970s discovery known as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), a powerful sensing technique that can increase the diagnostic signals of biomolecules on metal surfaces by more than a million times.
High production costs and limited batch-to-batch reproducibility have so far hindered...