Rapid and Quantitative Detection of Phthalic Acid Ester in Textiles Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

With the development of the concept of green textile, more and more attention has been paid to the toxic chemicals used in textiles. Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) having reproductive toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity, which are frequently used as plasticizers in textiles, will enter the human body via air, water and food and jeopardize human health. Therefore, theirpotential and adverse impacts on ecosystem functioning and onpublic health have aroused considerable and growing attentionin recent years. The determination of PAEs is largely based on chromatographic and chromatograph-mass spectrometer. These methods are sensitive, accurate, but have some limitations including high costs, long detection time, and the need of trained personnel. Other methods, such as ELISAs are less studied, which have some limitations including interference of matrix and false positives. Therefore, developing efficient method for the analysis of PAEs is of significant importance. Surface-enhanced Raman spectrum(SERS) can provide rich molecular structure information and has a very high sensitivity, which has been widely used in food safety, environmental monitoring and national security and other fields. In this paper, using a portable Raman spectrometer, a rapid and quantitative SERS method has been developed for the detection of PAEs. In this method, PAEs are first converted into phthalhydrazide, which is then adsorbed on the SERS substrates (Au sols). Using such a method, various PAEs can be rapidly detected. Furthermore, a good linear relationship between the concentration of PAEs and their Raman intensity has been obtained in the range of 5 similar to 150 mg . L-1. The linear regressionequation is Y=139. 04X+5 465. 32, with a correlation coefficient of 0. 993 0 and a detection limit of 5 mg . L-1. Using such a method, various PAEs in textiles are quantitatively detected with a recovery of >80%. The work demonstrates that the SERS method developed here is very simple, cost-effective and accurate thus is suitable for the rapid detection of the total amount of PAEs in textiles.