Skeleton pseudomorphs of nanostructured silver for the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Pseudomorphs (mesocages) of metallic silver were prepared via either a shape-preserving reduction of polyhedral Ag2O precursors with H2O2 in aqueous ammonia or an ultrasonic spray pyrolysis of aqueous diamminesilver(I) hydroxide. Both the materials were revealed as suitable for the direct analysis at 0.1–1 mm concentrations of oil pollutants and pharmaceutical substances using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy due to their unique morphology providing either a larger surface area for sorption of analytes or additional ‘hot spots’ resulting in the enhancement factors of 106–108.