Solid Migration to Assemble a Flower-like Nanozyme with Highly Dense Single Copper Sites for Specific Phenol Oxidation

Authors：Chen, Min; Zhang, Huijuan; Tian, Lin; Lv, Hongwei; Chen, Cai; Liu, Xiaokang; Wang, Wenyu; Wang, Yiwen; Zhao, Yafei; Wang, Jing; Zhou, Huang; Mao, Yu^*; Xiong, Can^*; Wu, Yuen^*

Source：ACS applied materials & interfaces, 2023, 15(1): 407-415.

DOI：10.1021/acsami.2c17231

• solid migration
• single copper sites
• phenol oxidase-like activity
• high specificity
• epinephrine detection

Nanozymes with high catalytic stability and sustainability have emerged as powerful competitors to natural enzymes for diverse biocatalytic applications. However, constructing a nanozyme with high specificity is one of their biggest challenges. Herein, we develop a facile solid migration strategy to access a flower-like single copper site nanozyme (Cu SSN) via direct transformation of copper foam activated by 2-methylimidazole. With highly clustered CuN3 sites whose local structure is similar to that of natural polyphenol oxidase, the Cu SSN exhibits excellent activity and specificity to oxidize phenols without peroxidase-like activity. Furthermore, the Cu SSN shows high sensitivity in the colorimetric detection of epinephrine with a low detection limit of 0.10 mu g mL-1, exceeding that of most previously reported enzyme-mimicking catalysts. This work not only provides a simple method for the large-scale preparation of high-performance nanozymes but also offers an inspiration for the design of highly specific nanozymes by mimicking the synergy among sites in natural enzymes.

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