Detection of pesticide residue distribution on fruit surfaces using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy imaging

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an emerging technique for the detection of pesticide residues on food surfaces, permitting quantitative measurement of pesticide residues without pretreating the sample. However, previous studies have mainly involved the single Raman spectrum of samples, while have given little information on pesticide residue distribution. In this paper, gold nanoparticles were used as surface enhancers to obtain the Raman spectra of omethoate and chlorpyrifos, using the Raman shifts of 413 cm(−1) (omethoate) and 346 & 634 cm(−1) (chlorpyrifos) as the peaks of interest. Different concentrations of pesticide solution were quantitatively analyzed and the regression curve model was established, whereby the solutions of omethoate and chlorpyrifos were used to study the distribution of pesticide residues on an apple surface by SERS microscopy imaging. Our study shows that this method can achieve rapid and quantitative detection and obtain basic information about the distribution of pesticide residues during pesticide application, which has the potential to be applied to the studies of the diffusion and absorption processes of pesticides in agricultural products.