Activated carbon@silver nanoparticles conjugates as <scp>SERS</scp> substrate for capturing malathion analyte molecules for <scp>SERS</scp> detection

Abstract Malathion is one of the commonly used organophosphate pesticides known to attack central nervous system, posing a risk humans and other animals upon exposure. The surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been identified as an indispensable tool for chemical biomolecular sensing. In this work, facile fabrication activated carbon (AC)‐based colloidal SERS active substrate dubbed AC@AgNPs was designed by trapping AgNPs on AC detection varying concentrations malathion. Apart from higher malathion, rest normal spectra malathion standard solutions exhibited weak signals. intensity peaks 0.47 mg L −1 were nearly non‐existent which indication that pesticide could only be detected up 0.95 when using silica wafer. On contrary, all in wheat extracts adsorbed strong Quantitative analysis performed regression models developed PLSR built with raw (no pretreatment), SNV‐PLSR, SNV‐CARS‐PLSR. model most remarkable performance established SNV‐PLSR r = 0.9869 RPD 4.61. This research shows proposed method can rapidly detect residues wheat, suggesting it adopted production process monitoring related food products guarantee their safety human animal consumption.