One-Pot Preparation of Imidazole-Ring-Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanozymes for Colorimetric Glucose Detection

Abstract

Nanozymes are highly desired to overcome the shortcomings of natural enzymes, such as low stability, high cost and difficult storage during biosensing applications. Herein, by imitating the structure of natural enzymes, we propose a one-pot annealing process to synthesis imidazole-ring-modified graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4-Im) with enhanced peroxidase-like activity. g-C3N4-Im shows enhanced peroxidase-like activity by 46.5 times compared to unmodified g-C3N4. Furthermore, imidazole rings of g-C3N4-Im make it possible to anchor Cu(II) active sites on it to produce g-C3N4-Im-Cu, which shows a further increase in peroxidase-like activity by three times. It should be noted that the as-prepared g-C3N4-Im-Cu could show obvious peroxidase-like activity over a broad range of pH values and at a low temperature (5 °C). The ultrahigh peroxidase-like activity is attributed to the electronic effect of imidazole rings and the active sites of Cu(II) for ·OH production. Based on the enhanced peroxidase-like activity, a H2O2 and glucose biosensor was developed with a high sensitivity (limit of detection, 10 nM) and selectivity. Therefore, the biosensor shows potential for applications in diabetic diagnoses in clinical practice.