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Fe,N-doped carbon as peroxidase mimics for single-use colorimetric bioassays

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Abstract

Nanozymes as promising alternatives to natural enzymes have attracted enormous attentions for their high robustness, low cost, and tunable activity. Among various candidates, carbonaceous nanomaterials possess extra advantage features of designable surface properties and good biocompatibility. However, their peroxidase-like activity is typically moderate owing to the short half-life of radical hydroxyl (·OH), the poor catalytic activity and substrate affinity. Herein, we synthesize Fe,N-doped carbon (Fe,N-C-800) via pyrolyzing Fe-doped ZIF-8 (ZnFe-ZIF) in NH3 at 800 °C. Fe,N-C-800 shows excellent peroxidase mimic with outstanding substrate affinity and catalytic velocity superior to the advanced Fe single-atom catalyst. The excellent enzyme-like performance is ascribed to the synergistic contributions of Fe- and N-doping. Fe functions as catalytic center while pyrrolic N absorbs TMB (3,3’,5,5’-Tetramethylbenzidine) substrate and enhances the electron density of Fe sites, thereby shortening the migration distance of ·OH and further improving the catalytic activity. Based on Fe,N-C-800, disposable paper bioassays are fabricated and exhibit ultrasensitive detection of H2O2.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21975123), the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (No. 2020JM-092), Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province (No. XCL-024), Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX20_0997, SJCX20_0401), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Author notes

  1. Lumin Wang, Jialu Xue and Jin Chang have contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing Tech University (NanjingTech), Nanjing, 211816, People’s Republic of China

    Lumin Wang, Jialu Xue, Jin Chang, Chenyang Yu, Henghan Dai, Zhenjie Yao, Gengzhi Sun & Wei Huang

  2. Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), Xi’an, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Gengzhi Sun & Wei Huang

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, 454003, People’s Republic of China

    Gengzhi Sun

  4. School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, People’s Republic of China

    Jinyuan Zhou

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  1. Lumin Wang
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Correspondence to Gengzhi Sun.

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Wang, L., Xue, J., Chang, J. et al. Fe,N-doped carbon as peroxidase mimics for single-use colorimetric bioassays. J Mater Sci 56, 13579–13589 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-021-06190-9

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