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We describe a sensitive and selective colorimetric method for the determination of the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and its inhibitors. Detection is based on the fact that acetylthiocholine iodide (ATCI) catalyzes the oxidation of the substrate 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) by H2O2 to form a blue product (ox-TMB) with an absorption peak at 652 nm, but that oxidation is suppressed if ACTI previously is hydrolyzed by AChE to form thiocholine which decolorizes ox-TMB. In the presence of inhibitor, the activity of AChE is inhibited, thereby inducing the recovery of the blue coloration. Based on these findings, a highly sensitive method is developed for the determination of AChE and its inhibitors. The assay only requires mixing of buffer, solutions of ATCI, TMB, H2O2 and a sample containing AChE and photometric measurement. It works in the 0.05 to 5 mU•mL−1 enzyme activity range and has a detection limit as low as 30 μU•mL−1. The inhibitor neostigmine causes 50 % enzyme inhibition in 14.5 nM concentration. This analytical system has a wide scope in that it may be applied to the determination of the activity of various other hydrolases with proper substrates.

A CuO nanothorns/Cu foam (NTs-CuO/Cu foam) was synthesized using a low-cost and facile method. The morphology and composition of the NTs-CuO/Cu foam were characterized using SEM, TEM and XRD. Copper foam as the current collector played a key role in the formation of the NTs-CuO/Cu foam. The CuO nanothorns were freely grown on copper foam, and can make contact with the underneath conductive copper foam directly. The NTs-CuO/Cu foam was used as an electrocatalyst for the detection of glucose in an electrochemical sensor. The CuO nanothorns/Cu foam electrode shows an extremely high sensitivity of 5.9843 mA mM−1 cm−2 and a low detection limit of 0.275 μM based on a signal to noise ratio of 3. Due to its excellently high sensitivity, stability and anti-interference ability, the NTs-CuO/Cu foam will be a promising material for constructing practical non-enzymatic glucose sensors.

In this paper, a novel biosensor based on Carbon dots (C-dots) for sensitive detection of hydroquinone (H2Q) is reported. It is interesting to find that the fluorescence of the C-dots could be quenched by H2Q directly. The possible quenching mechanism is proposed, which shows that the quenching effect may be caused by the electron transfer from C-dots to oxidized H2Q-quinone. Based on the above principle, a novel C-dots based fluorescent probe has been successfully applied to detect H2Q. Under the optimal condition, detection limit down to 0.1 μM is obtained, which is far below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated wastewater discharge limit of 0.5 mg/L. Moreover, the proposed method shows high selectivity for H2Q over a number of potential interfering species. Finally, several water samples spiked with H2Q are analyzed utilizing the sensing method with satisfactory recovery. The proposed method is simple with high sensitivity and excellent selectivity, which provides a new approach for the detection of various analytes that can be transformed into quinone.

Glutathione (GSH) plays an important role in the biological system and serves many cellular functions. Since all of the biothiols possess similar functional groups, it is still challenging to selectively detect GSH over cysteine (Cys) and homocysteine (Hcy). In this work, a novel and simple colorimetric method for discriminative detection of glutathione (GSH) over Cys and Hcy is developed. The proposed method is based on the fact that Ag [I] ion could oxidize 3,3',5,5',-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to the oxidized TMB to induce a blue color and an absorption peak centered at 652 nm. However, the introduction of GSH could cause the reduction of oxidized TMB and it could also combine with Ag(+), both of which result in a blue color fading and a decrease of the absorbance at 652 nm. Based on this finding, we propose a method to qualitatively and quantitatively detect GSH by naked eyes and UV-vis spectroscopy, respectively. The proposed method shows a low detection limit of 0.1 µM by naked eyes and 0.05 µM with the help of UV-vis spectroscopy. In addition, this method has great potential in discriminatively detecting GSH over other amino acid and biothiols. More importantly, this method is simple and fast without the preparation of nanomaterials and has also been successfully applied to the detection of GSH in biological fluids.

In this study, we successfully, for the first time, prepared nitrogen and fluorine dual-doped mesoporous graphene (NF-MG) via the thermal treatment of graphene oxide/polyaniline composites (GO/PANI) and NH4F. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of N and F co-doping into the G framework, the oxygen reduction reaction performance of the optimal catalyst (NF-MG3) is comparable with the-state-of-the-art Pt/C catalyst in an alkaline medium, which makes it an ideal candidate as an efficient metal-free ORR electrocatalyst in fuel cells.

In this work, a novel facile nanoparticle autocatalytic sensor based on the inhibition of the Ag autocatalytic reaction for the determination of Hg(2+) was developed. o-Phenylenediamine (OPD) tended to be oxidized into 2,3-diaminophenazine (OPDox) by silver ions (Ag(+)) followed by the formation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Employed as a catalyst, the thus-formed AgNPs would further promote the reaction between OPD and Ag(+). When Hg(2+) was introduced, Hg(2+) adsorbed on the surface of the AgNPs, thus inhibiting the oxidation process mentioned above and achieving weakened fluorescence intensity. A linear relationship between fluorescence intensity and Hg(2+) concentration (within the range from 10 nM to 2500 nM) was obtained and the detection limit reached as low as 8.2 nM. The proposed method was also applied for the determination of Hg(2+) in real water samples with satisfactory results. The protocol showed excellent advantages of sensitivity and selectivity for Hg(2+) over various metal ions and anions. Meanwhile, this method was simpler and more cost-effective compared with many reported nanomaterial- and DNA-based approaches. Furthermore, an "INHIBIT" logic gate based on the Ag(+)-Hg(2+)-OPD system has also been designed.