LOC-SERS using metal nanoparticles for quantitative detection of the simulated metabolism of nicotine in urine

In this contribution the great potential of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in a lab-on-a-chip device (LOC) for the quantitative analysis of molecules in a complex environment is demonstrated. The quantification of nicotine in synthetic urine based on a simulated metabolism of nicotine to cotinine, one metabolite of the alkaloid, is carried out by applying a partial least square analysis (PLS) as statistic method. It can be shown that even in a complex environment a quantification of nicotine can be realized by the use of statistic methods. This is a promising approach towards the diagnosis of drugs in urine by the means of SERS.