Rapid Detection of Banned Dyes in Textiles Based on Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Dye is one of the most important compounds. The textile industry consumes more than half of its total production each year, so dyes have a critical impact on the safety of textiles. The improvement of lifestyle has prompted people to pursue more safety of clothing. In addition, the frequent safety accidents of textile dyes have made relevant institutions focus on the development of more effective detection technology. Most of the banned dyes have carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, sensitization and other hazards to the human body. Moreover, many harmful dyes can exist in light,solvents and most chemical substances for a long-time, and it has difficult to degrade, causing harm to the environments. The development of rapid and sensitive technique is highly desired for the detection of banned dyes. Herein, based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), a rapid qualitative method for dyes in textiles was established. SERS technology exhibits high detection sensitivity and fast detection speed for more accurate qualitative detection of dyes. Two kinds of dyes (basic red 9 and disperse yellow 23), which are prohibited in the national standards,were employed as the model probe molecules. Silver nanoparticles were fabricated by one-step method,and the substrate optimization experiment was carried out. Combined with SERS technology, the rapid identification of dyes in textiles was achieved. It was revealed that the limit of detection (LOD) of these two dyes in textiles was about 0.16 and 0.24 mg/kg for basic red 9 and disperse yellow 23, respectively. The LOD was one order of magnitude higher than the national standard. It demonstrated that the SERS based approach could be developed as promising technique for direct and rapid evaluation of textile safety.