Cu@Au(Ag)/Pt nanocomposite as peroxidase mimic and application of Cu@Au/Pt in colorimetric detection of glucose and l-cysteine

Nanomaterial-based artificial peroxidase has attracted extensive interests due to their distinct advantages over natural counterpart. Cu@Au/Pt and Cu@Ag/Pt nanocomposite with rambutan-like structure were prepared and discovered to function like peroxidase, which was illustrated by catalyzing the oxidation reaction of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) accompanied with a blue color change. Steady-state investigation indicates that the catalytic kinetics of Cu@Au/Pt and Cu@Ag/Pt all followed typical Michaelis–Menten behaviors and Cu@Au/Pt showed a strong affinity for H₂O₂, while Cu@Ag/Pt showed strong affinity for TMB. The color change and absorbance intensity strongly depend on the concentration of H₂O₂, thus the direct determination of H₂O₂ and indirect detection of glucose were demonstrated using Cu@Au/Pt with a detection limit of 1.5 μM and 6 μM, respectively. What is more important, the method was applied for detection of glucose in 50% fetal bovine serum with a detection limit of 80 μM, which is much lower than the lowest glucose content in blood for diabetes (7 mM). Moreover, the Cu@Au/Pt nanocomposite were also successfully applied for sensing l-cysteine because of the inhibition effect. Considering the good peroxidase-like activity and novel structure, Cu@Au(Ag)/Pt is expected to have a wide range of applications in bioassays and biocatalysis.

Cu@Au(Ag)/Pt nanocomposite possess good peroxidase-like activity and can be used for detection of glucose and l-cysteine.