Portable Kit for Identification and Detection of Drugs in Human Urine Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

A portable kit was demonstrated for rapid and reliable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection of drugs in human urine. This kit contains two sealed reagent tubes, a packet of standardized SERS substrates, and a mini Raman device. A 3 min pretreatment for separating amphetamines from human urine was developed with an extraction rate of >80% examined by ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC). Simultaneously, highly reproducible two-dimensional (2D) gold nanorod (GNR) arrays were assembled by the use of methoxymercaptopoly­(ethylene glycol) (mPEG-SH) capping. Thirty batches of GNR arrays produced the 1001 cm^–1 intensity of methamphetamine (MA) molecules with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 7.9%, and a 21 × 21 μm² area mapping on a 2D GNR array produced a statistical RSD of