Single‐Atom Iron Boosts Electrochemiluminescence

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 59; no. 9; pp. 3534 - 3538
• Main Authors: Gu, Wenling, Wang, Hengjia, Jiao, Lei, Wu, Yu, Chen, Yuxin, Hu, Liuyong, Gong, Jingming, Du, Dan, Zhu, Chengzhou
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 24-02-2020
• Edition: International ed. in English
• Subjects: antioxidant capacity; Antioxidants; Catalysts; Catalytic activity; Dissolved oxygen; Electrochemiluminescence; Electronic structure; Fe-N-C catalysts; Hydrogen peroxide; Iron; luminol; Reactive oxygen species; Room temperature; single-atom catalysts; Vitamin E; single-atom catalysts; electrochemiluminescence; Fe-N-C catalysts; antioxidant capacity; luminol
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201914643

The traditional luminol–H2O2 electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensing platform suffers from self‐decomposition of H2O2 at room temperature, hampering its application for quantitative analysis. In this work, for the first time we employ iron single‐atom catalysts (Fe‐N‐C SACs) as an advanced co‐reactant accelerator to directly reduce the dissolved oxygen (O2) to reactive oxygen species (ROS). Owing to the unique electronic structure and catalytic activity of Fe‐N‐C SACs, large amounts of ROS are efficiently produced, which then react with the luminol anion radical and significantly amplify the luminol ECL emission. Under the optimum conditions, a Fe‐N‐C SACs–luminol ECL sensor for antioxidant capacity measurement was developed with a good linear range from 0.8 μm to 1.0 mm of Trolox.
Boosting luminescence: The traditional luminol–H2O2 electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensing platform suffers from self‐decomposition of H2O2 at room temperature, hampering its application for quantitative analysis. Single‐atom iron boosts luminol ECL by in situ generating reactive oxygen species, achieving sensitive detection of antioxidants.