A revisiting of transition metal phosphide (Cu₃P and FeP) nanozymes for two sugar-related reactions

Transition metal phosphides (TMPs) are essential catalysts for some general catalytic reactions. However, their potentials for biological catalysis have seldom been explored. Herein, we investigated the enzyme-like properties of four TMPs (FeP, CoP, Ni₂P, and Cu₃P) towards two sugar-related reactions. Among the four TMPs, Cu₃P nanoparticles (NPs) efficiently catalyzed the hydrolysis of glycosidic bonds as glycoside hydrolase mimics, and FeP NPs possessed both glucose oxidase-like (GOx-like) and peroxidase-like activities, which combined into a cascade reaction for glucose’s simple and one-step colorimetric biosensor without GOx. Cu₃P and FeP NPs with distinctive enzyme-like activities have shown unique biological catalysis potentials for further applications with an attractive and challenging goal of developing nanomaterials to mimic natural enzymes, which encourages more efforts to reveal TMP’s capabilities towards biocatalysis.