Characterization and detection of uranyl ion sorption on silver surfaces using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Deepak Bhandari, Sabrina M. Wells, Scott T. Retterer, Michael J. Sepaniak

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

The study of the chemical behavior of uranyl species and its rapid detection is of primary environmental and nonproliferation concern. Herein, we report on a surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic study of uranyl ion (UO 22+) sorption onto the thermally vapor deposited silver particle surface. The ability of vibrational spectroscopy to characterize surface phenomenon and the remarkable sensitivity of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) have been introduced as an appropriate combination for the surface characterization and detection of UO22+ onto the silver surface. The appearance of symmetric stretching frequency of UO 22+ around 700 cm-1 and the disappearance of the 854 cm-1 band are attributed to the development of a chemical bond between silver surface and uranyl species. The effects of temperature, solute-surface interaction time, and pH have been studied using silver modified polypropylene filter (PPF) substrates. Results show that under appropriate conditions, the concentration of uranyl ion as low as 20 ng/mL can be easily detected using the discussed SERS approach without any surface modification of silver nanoparticles. Moreover, an alternative SERS approach of uranyl detection is demonstrated using nanolithographically fabricated SERS substrates.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8061-8067
Number of pages7
JournalAnalytical Chemistry
Volume81
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2009

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