Manganese as a Catalytic Mediator for Photo-oxidation and Breaking the pH Limitation of Nanozymes

A long-standing challenge in nanozyme catalysis is low activity at physiological pH, especially for oxidase- and peroxidase-mimicking nanozymes. We herein communicate that Mn(II) can promote catalysis at neutral pH for carbon dots (C-dots) as a photo-oxidase nanozyme. The C-dots produce singlet oxygen upon light irradiation to oxidize Mn(II) to Mn(III), which is confirmed by a suite of spectroscopic evidence. The in situ produced Mn(III) acts as a mediator, analogous to mediators in electrochemistry to enhance electron transfer. None of the other divalent metal ions show such an effect, allowing the selective detection of Mn(II) down to 5 nM. EDTA further enhances the activity by stabilizing the highly active Mn(III), producing an intense blue color by oxidizing 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) in just 10 s. Finally, this reaction was used to evaluate antioxidants. With this method, more analytical and biomedical applications of nanozymes can be exploited at neutral pH, and it may inspire other strategies to overcome the pH limitation in nanozyme catalysis.