Single-Atom Iron Enables Strong Low-Triggering-Potential Luminol Cathodic Electrochemiluminescence

Anal Chem. 2022 Jul 5;94(26):9459-9465. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c01794. Epub 2022 Jun 23.

Abstract

The conventional cathodic electrochemiluminescence (ECL) always requires a more negative potential to trigger strong emission, which inevitably damages the bioactivity of targets and decreases the sensitivity and specificity. In this work, iron single-atom catalysts (Fe-N-C SACs) were employed as an efficient co-reaction accelerator for the first time to achieve the impressively cathodic emission of a luminol-H2O2 ECL system at an ultralow potential. Benefiting from the distinct electronic structure, Fe-N-C SACs exhibit remarkable properties for the activation of H2O2 to produce massive reactive oxygen species (ROS) under a negative scanning potential from 0 to -0.2 V. The ROS can oxidize the luminol anions into luminol anion radicals, avoiding the tedious electrochemical oxidation process of luminol. Then, the in situ-formed luminol anion radicals will directly react with ROS for the strong ECL emission. As a proof of concept, sensitive detection of the carcinoembryonic antigen was realized by glucose oxidase-mediated ECL immunoassay, shedding light on the superiority of SACs to construct efficient cathodic ECL systems with low triggering potential.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biosensing Techniques*
  • Electrochemical Techniques
  • Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Iron
  • Limit of Detection
  • Luminescent Measurements
  • Luminol / chemistry
  • Metal Nanoparticles* / chemistry
  • Reactive Oxygen Species

Substances

  • Reactive Oxygen Species
  • Luminol
  • Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Iron