Evaluation of an on-site surface enhanced Raman scattering sensor for benzotriazole

Benzotriazole (BTAH) has been used for decades as corrosion inhibitor and antifreeze. Since it is fairly soluble in water but very stable and can only be partly removed from wastewater treatment plants, it represents a threat to the environment and thus also to human health. Therefore, it is of uttermost importance to have a detection method capable of monitoring the concentration of BTAH at trace level on-site. Here, we demonstrate that a sensor based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy is capable of detecting trace-level concentrations of BTAH. We carefully studied the concentration dependency and the time dependent coverage. Moreover, we could not only perform the measurements with clean solution but also with real samples from a wastewater treatment plant, ensuring that our method proposed works in a complex environment.