SERS Sensing of Pharmaceuticals

2 SERS Sensing of Pharmaceuticals and Drugs 4.2.1 SERS Sensing of Pharmaceuticals 

Pharmaceuticals represent an important group of biologically important molecules. SERS is a highly suitable technique for the quality control processes of pharmaceuticals such as identification, final goods, trace impurity detection and in-line process control (Cinta Pinzam and Pavel 2011). 

Various pharmaceuticals including aspirin, paracetamol, antibiotics, antimalari-als and anticarcinogenics were studied by SERS on the colloidal NPs (Wang et al. 

SERS sensitive detection, identification and quantification of trace amounts of drugs and their uptake in the human body have importance in medical, forensic and criminal investigations. SERS analysis is fast, nondestructive and can be done in situ using a portable Raman spectrometer which is a big advantage when compared with separation and chemical analytical procedures. 

SERS using colloidal NPs was successfully applied to the highly sensitive analysis of narcotics (Ryder 2005) as well as of other controlled substances amphetamines (Sagmuller et al. 2001), cocaine and nicotine (Cinta Pinzaru et al. 2004), codeine, morphine and hydrocodone (Rana et al. 2011). The approach based on Au- and Ag-doped sol-gels immobilized in glass capillaries (Earquharson et al. 

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