Assessment of norfloxacin degradation induced by plasma-produced ozone using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Abstract In this work, we employed surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculation to investigate the pathways/mechanisms of the norfloxacin degradation by oxygen plasma produced ozone. The main degradation products were analyzed by the spectroscopic method, which revealed the breakage of the C–F bond and fracture of piperazinyl and quinolone moieties. In particular, we showed that the main degradation pathway was defluorination of norfloxacin, and this process could be quantitatively assessed by our proposed SERS approach.