Fabrication of zein-based electrospun nanofiber decorated with gold nanoparticles as a SERS platform

In this study, a new technique was developed to create an eco-friendly and biodegradable SERS sensor platform using electrospun corn zein fibers. First, electrospinning was used in conjunction with glutaraldehyde, a crosslinker for proteins, to create crosslinked zein nanofibers. The surface of the nanofibers was then decorated with 20-nm-diameter gold nanoparticles, and the biosensor platform was tested with the Raman active Rhodamine 6G. The high surface area and the high surface roughness enabled a SERS signal enhancement of 1.06 × 10⁶, which only required 2.8 × 10⁻⁷ g of gold nanoparticle deposition on the fibers. This electrospun zein-based gold nanoparticle-decorated sensor platform is not only made with a quicker, simpler and an inexpensive method compared to the other techniques requiring etching procedures and has a very good shelf life stability, but also serves as a green alternative to the plastic-based SERS sensor platforms with an equivalent and sometimes lesser SERS signal enhancement.