A V2O3-ordered mesoporous carbon composite with novel peroxidase-like activity towards the glucose colorimetric assay

It is of great scientific and practical significance to explore inorganic mimetic enzymes to replace natural enzymes due to their instability and high cost. Herein we present an interesting discovery that a V2O3-ordered mesoporous carbon composite (V2O3-OMC) has a novel peroxidase-like activity towards fast redox reaction of typical peroxidase substrates H2O2 and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzo-thiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS). Due to the small size effect and large surface area of V2O3 nanoparticles supported by OMC, V2O3-OMC exhibited excellent catalytic performance with a kcat of 1.28 × 104 s−1, KM (ABTS) of 0.067 mM and KM (H2O2) of 0.16 mM, and a significantly higher catalytic efficiency (kcat/KM) towards the oxidation of ABTS in comparison with the natural peroxidases. Furthermore, the Ping-pong BiBi mechanism was proposed to explain the catalytic reaction by V2O3-OMC. Based on this highly active biomimetic peroxidase and the colorimetric detection of H2O2, a facile analytical method was developed to detect glucose by using V2O3-OMC and glucose oxidase, which had a wide linear range (0.01–4 mM glucose), good selectivity and reliability for successful detection of various real samples. Thus, the novel V2O3-OMC peroxidase mimetic holds great promise for broad potential applications.