Surface Imprinted Layer of Cypermethrin upon Au Nanoparticle as a Specific and Selective Coating for the Detection of Template Pesticide Molecules

The detection of specific pesticides on food products is essential as these substances pose health risks due to their toxicity. The use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) takes advantage of the straightforward technique to obtain fingerprint spectra of target analytes. In this study, SERS-active substrates are made using Au nanoparticles (NPs) coated with a layer of polymer and followed by imprinting with a pesticide–Cypermethrin, as a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP). Cypermethrin was eventually removed and formed as template cavities, then denoted as Au NP/MIP, to capture the analogous molecules. The captured molecules situated in-between the areas of high electromagnetic field formed by plasmonic Au NPs result in an effect of SERS. The formation of Au NP/MIP was, respectively, studied through morphological analysis using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and compositional analysis using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Two relatively similar pesticides, Cypermethrin and Permethrin, were used as analytes. The results showed that Au NP/MIP was competent to detect both similar molecules despite the imprint being made only by Cypermethrin. Nevertheless, Au NP/MIP has a limited number of imprinted cavities that result in sensing only low concentrations of a pesticide solution. Au NP/MIP is thus a specific design for detecting analogous molecules similar to its template structure.