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Nano Research 2024, 17(4): 2298-2307 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6039-6
Research Article | Issue | Published: 14 August 2023

Coordinatively unsaturated cobalt single-atom nanozymes for visual pesticides detection by smartphone-based platform

Show Author's Information Fangning Liu,§,  Zhe Li,§,  Hengya Wei,  Peng Xu,  Ge Kang,  Shicheng Zhu,  Tingting Wang,  Ruxue He,  Chuanxia Chen( ),  Yizhong Lu( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, China

§ Fangning Liu and Zhe Li contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
smartphone, oxygen adsorption, single-atom nanozymes, organophosphorus pesticides, asymmetric
Topics:
Nanocatalysts
Cite this article:
Liu F, Li Z, Wei H, et al. Coordinatively unsaturated cobalt single-atom nanozymes for visual pesticides detection by smartphone-based platform. Nano Research, 2024, 17(4): 2298-2307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6039-6
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

By adjusting the coordination environment of single-atom catalysts, the enzyme-like activity can be finely tuned for highly sensitive biosensing. Herein, we demonstrated that coordinatively unsaturated cobalt-nitrogen sites doped within porous carbon (SA-CoN3) could serve as highly efficient oxidase mimic. Compared with the typical planar four-coordination structure (SA-CoN4), the as-obtained single-atom Co nanozymes anchored by three nitrogen atoms are found to display much higher oxidase-like catalytic efficiency. Combined theoretical and experimental analysis revealed that the coordinatively unsaturated Co sites could facilitate adsorption and activation of O2 molecule and thus improve their oxidase-like activity. Based on the enhanced oxidase-like activity of SA-CoN3, a paper/smartphone sensor for organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) was successfully constructed and used to quantify glyphosate in environmental and food samples with a low detection limit of 0.66 μM. This work not only highlights the important role of coordination unsaturation of SA nanozymes for promoting oxidase-like activity, but also provides an easy and cost-effective way to conduct effective quantification of OPs in the field.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Coordinatively unsaturated cobalt single-atom nanozymes for visual pesticides detection by smartphone-based platform

Show Author's information Fangning Liu,§, Zhe Li,§, Hengya Wei, Peng Xu, Ge Kang, Shicheng Zhu, Tingting Wang, Ruxue He, Chuanxia Chen( ), Yizhong Lu( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, China

§ Fangning Liu and Zhe Li contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

By adjusting the coordination environment of single-atom catalysts, the enzyme-like activity can be finely tuned for highly sensitive biosensing. Herein, we demonstrated that coordinatively unsaturated cobalt-nitrogen sites doped within porous carbon (SA-CoN3) could serve as highly efficient oxidase mimic. Compared with the typical planar four-coordination structure (SA-CoN4), the as-obtained single-atom Co nanozymes anchored by three nitrogen atoms are found to display much higher oxidase-like catalytic efficiency. Combined theoretical and experimental analysis revealed that the coordinatively unsaturated Co sites could facilitate adsorption and activation of O2 molecule and thus improve their oxidase-like activity. Based on the enhanced oxidase-like activity of SA-CoN3, a paper/smartphone sensor for organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) was successfully constructed and used to quantify glyphosate in environmental and food samples with a low detection limit of 0.66 μM. This work not only highlights the important role of coordination unsaturation of SA nanozymes for promoting oxidase-like activity, but also provides an easy and cost-effective way to conduct effective quantification of OPs in the field.

Keywords: smartphone, oxygen adsorption, single-atom nanozymes, organophosphorus pesticides, asymmetric

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 07 July 2023
Revised: 19 July 2023
Accepted: 22 July 2023
Published: 14 August 2023
Issue date: April 2024

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22172063 and 21904048), the Young Taishan Scholar Program (No. tsqn201812080), and the Independent Cultivation Program of Innovation Team of Ji’nan City (No. 2021GXRC052).

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